If I had to do it all again...

Eacen and I were in our kitchen cooking dinner together a few nights ago trying to brainstorm some ideas to give our main accounts some new direction or new life. Eaken and Korinna are a little stale, at least for us, but we want to keep our characters fresh and relevant, truly.

I asked him -- just for fun -- What he would do in Second Life if he was given the chance to start over. His answer warmed my heart as well and got me thinking. He said. "I'd like another shot at being a Centaur. I feel like we started admining before I got the chance to do that."

He's right. While we were able to come up with a back story for both of us, it was heavily influenced by needing to help the RP, in fact they were quite different characters when we started (Hence the name changes).

He wouldn't want to be anything than an retired officer turned blacksmith, but he would have liked do it differently. He didn't know how, I mean... he's just a bloke, really. *ducks*

It occured to me the other day while browsing over character applications, that a lot of people who come to RP to a sim, have a great opportunity to present themselves to the group as they want to be presented. Don't get me wrong, presenting one's self can be intimidating and difficult. But it is an opportunity that one should seize, because it is here where you get to set your own momentum.

I can not help but notice, that people take advantage of the flexability of second life, move on and reinvent themselves constantly. People who are not tied to one sim, have a lot of room to reinvent, or go with a different character entirely. Sometimes several at a time.

So now I find myself, asking myself what would I do if I had the opportunity to walk into my own sim, and start our character(s) over fresh? Now that the sim is settled, the sim is full, and the sim has the capacity for Role-players; what would I do, if I could?

I find that, like Eaken, I would still be Korinna. An Epimeliad coming back to her birthplace in the Seven Isles, after years wandering around in a retinue of revelers devoted to the Wine God, until she settled down with a Centaur officer. I'd have let her be a priestess in a small humble temple where she learned the rites that called to her. I would have them come by ship, Korinna Ill and weak having been separated from her tree for so long, with or without her infant daughter.

We could come in Armour for him, and full Chiton and Himnation robes for me, before we traded them for aprons and heavy gloves.

I would have roleplayed her recovery, and being reunited with her sister who was raising her kids there. I would have confronted her with the mystery of her mother going from Hamadryad to full tree. I would have spent more time cuddling with my Centaur, had more intimate time with him (Not sexual. We have RL sex with RL privacy!) I would have gotten to know his Centaur while he got to know him too.

We could Roleplay choosing our home, and setting up from humble beginnings.

And maybe, more of the real Eaken would have been able to Roleplay his own experiences, coming to an island much different than his own, one that lacks laws and the level of civilization he was used to. Maybe more people would have seen he has a gentle soul behind that crass and bad sense of humor. Maybe we'd see a fierce side of him that emerges only when his family or land is threatened.

If I had the opportunity to do this months back, I could have re-roleplayed her pregnancy, this time as a first time mother with grave concern how a Centaur pregnancy would turn out. I could be inexperienced, but gaining confidence. More approachable, less authoritative.

But most of all, I would like to have loved the time to be absorbed in my Centaur partner, A knight of a man who needed no horse. Strength, with Honour as well as thought and skill.

The Centaur and the Epimeliad
The warrior and the Maenad
The Officer and the Priestess
The Potter and the Blacksmith
The Mother and the Father

We could have been all of these things. Perhaps we should have. Perhaps we are in our pasts, but to feel them as our present... it could have been wonderful.