I have not been on these forums for the last month or so, I have left a story I was working on half finished and thats not good enough as far as im conserned.
I began writting my ARCADIAN tales as a way of escaping from the worries of the world, I am now 42 years of age and have lived with depression for more than half my life.
I am heavilly into warcraft, I troll the forums I have five fan sites (including this one) as my only favorites in my browser I follow every rumour and hint I constantly use dps calculators to tweak my toons and in my mind I role play them, Starzein the hunter in my stories was raised by a warrior named Astralis, as im sure you can guess Astralis was my main toon before i rolled Starzein.
When i get depressed with my real life I take joy in the adventures of my characters, when i get depressed in the game world i take my characters into the written world and escape again.
I cope with my illness by taking pride in my creations, I may feel like im still struggling but my Hunter Starzein, she is brilliant, strong fierce powerfull. I can be all I want to be in the game, I have a confidence in my abilities in game that isnt shared by my real life persona.
At least thats what i thought.
I am a performer firetwirler and juggler, I spent many years travelling across the country performing at festivals and events and though my depression causes problems with this I overcome my self doubts by creating a character that i perform as. A clown if you will, the clown never gets upset never feels down he just collects smiles and will do anything to get one.
When i perform I personerate ( act completely as another person, elvis personerators are elvis from the time they awake till they fall asleep, like an impersonator but personeraters live the role not act it)
My character when i perform is named Astral, I even have friends who know Astral but have not met Ashley the dude who plays him. I help run a festival as Astral, he has no self doubts lots of carisma.
When i began to play wow i named my first toon Astralicon (astral I Con...which is how i feel when i steal a smile from someone who wasnt ready to give one , i con smiles out of people) I played soley as the clown its Ast's needs that were being met not Ashleys. It started when an injury saw my career slow down and I began to perform less and settle down a bit, less traveling I finally got myself a home and a good relationship, I even started a business selling juggeling and twirling supplies, hippy clothing and I ran workshops on circus skills at after school programs.
I was doing well, wow was just a part time thing for me.
Then my partner left me I entered into a dark depression, I closed my business I hid myself away from the world and i got into warcraft as my only outlet my sole hobby.It became Ashley playing it was to make me feel good not to create good feelings in others.
My next toon was Astralis (astral is) I was spending more time as the character than i was as myself so Astral is seemed apt.
I had a few issues with the game as all who spend most thier time on-line do and so i began to take my characters out and create stories about them, fleshed them out a bit gave them a chance to live on thier own and in doing so I got back some of the creativeness i had lost when I stopped performing as my main income.
I dont look at what i write as something to be proud of it is what it is, an escape from the real world I didnt realise I was giving an escape to others too.
Last night I had a friend send me a link to a short story, he thought i would get a kick out of this as he knows Astral and has for many years and one of Astral's main traits is he is a pacifist. Despite having the skills to use staffs, swords and darts I use my skills solely for entertainment. My friend sent me the story because one of the characters in it was to his mind what Astral would be in a fantasy world me without the pacifist political view. Dangerous but with a soft animal loving side and the character name was familier.
The story he said was a favorite of his he didnt know who wrote it but thought it was very much my style and he thought i would get a laugh out of Astral being a warrior instead of an entertainer he also liked that there was a firetwirling refrence and knew i'd get a kick out of that.
The story was my own ARCADIAN tale He noticed the name Astralis as being close to my performing name but it never occured to him that it was in fact my character, Ive yet to tell him because he was pissed that the author didnt finish the story, I didnt because the reason i wrote it the escape was not needed anymore the game was ok and i didnt need the other outlet.
So for Jason if your reading this and for anyone else who knows me, Im sorry for not finishing it and i will get back to it soon but its Ashley who does the writting and he is still not well enough to really do a good job im hiding behind Astral at the moment like i did for many years to escape the embarresment of performing in front of a crowd now i hide from the embaressment of being me, insecure alone and scared.
So I am sorry if there are any others out there who want to see what happens to Starz and Ast, I want to know as well Astralis is confident and sure Starzein is a little unaware of her self but increadably adept at what she does, I owe them for the safety they have given me and the secure place to hide away from the world and i wont repay them by trying to write thier story untill I can give them the love and care they need.
I may dislike myself at times but i never dislike Astralis and Starzein so writting thier stories when im struggeling to write my own life just seems unfare.
