Well, I�m planning on attacking the death of Tiger once again. This topic seems to be a rough one for me to get into. I�ve been trying to write it for the past couple days and each time I sit here at the keyboard, I find that everything I want to say is stuck behind my teeth. (hey, it makes sense to me) So, today, I�m just going to sit here and write until it comes out. I�ve given myself that duty, so to speak.

Anyway, the direction I wanted to go in... I�ll start with the wreck.

So, January had everyone happy and thrilled with being in the Lair. Tig was in her prime. I was happy to have found some kind of life that I could deal with. I had gone into the Lair and Tig made her appearance. I thanked Doug for the hat and logged off early. Then the wreck happened.

I spent a week being unconscious, partly due to Morphine, partly due to being... well... unconscious. I was transferred from Salem to Seattle and went through another nearly three weeks there having surgery and then recovering to a degree. I was released to my parents� home (the hospital wanted me to go to a convalescent care, but we couldn�t afford it.) where I could receive 24 hour care. I spent the following month shuffling around a little, but most of the time I was sleeping or laying down in my room. I was completely and totally miserable for a long while and I didn�t have the energy to go on-line.

It was nearly nine weeks before I was able to get on-line. I remember sitting there in Mom�s office, my head reeling, my body spent. I was so exhausted that I didn�t last more than half an hour in the Lair. It had been set up (with my permission) by a friend of mine. The Regs would go there to RP during my absence, but they were often talking about me.

That was the first time I remember being so... Not into playing Tiger. I felt so totally defeated in my real life, physically as well as emotionally and mentally, that I wasn�t able to play Tiger the way she really was. I started creating a story for her, an explanation for her long, long, long absence. I wrote it up and started, slowly, playing it out. I explained a few things to certain friends and they helped by creating characters to play the badguys.

It was so very involved. And I started, once again, using that fantasy world to parallel my non-internet life. I found strength in Tiger. When I personally was feeling really crappy, I would play Tiger as being under psionic attack (mental magic) When I was feeling really good, Tig would be in her usual form. She was a great altar ego for me. Through her, I was able to say the things I couldn�t say in real life.

But then, like with all things, the atmosphere of Chat changed. When I was gone for so long and not able to get back on-line with any regularity until at least four months had passed, a lot had changed within the Lair itself. There were some regulars who didn�t show up much anymore. There were a few new faces. Doug was there with a new character, Justice Le ? I can�t remember the surname. I�ll think of it sooner or later.

Anyway, in the story that I had set up to explain Tig�s absence, we had pretty much played it out. Then, the woman behind Lady Alyx ad libbed a little. She was always so very, very good. She was incredible. She�s an actress in New York... Actress and producer, even.

But, in the course of the RP, she died. As did Justice. Tig felt they died because she failed. And that was so very, very hard on me. I remember sitting in my room, tears streaming down my face as I read the screen. Justice was bleeding to death on Tig�s couch. Tig was trying her damndest to heal him and then Alyx intercepted a dagger meant for Tig. Tig couldn�t save them both. She tried. And she failed.

She passed out soon after that. It was a severe strain on the fantasy I had created. I knew, somewhere deep inside me, that this RP was a fantasy world and that because of that fact, I could have typed out that Tig had healed them both. But Alyx didn�t want to have her character survive. Nor did Justice.

Major blow in the final death of Tiger. That instance reminded me that no matter what I controlled in my fantasy world, I couldn�t control other people�s fantasy worlds. And that meant, ultimately, that I couldn�t control my own fantasy world either. I could only control the world I created, if I didn�t have anyone else in it. The Lair would have been worthless if there weren�t any other people there.

*shrugs*

Time moved forward. I lost internet access for about five months or so. When I was back on-line, I opened the Lair once again. Only, this time, about 90 percent of the Regs had dropped off-line due to a lack of decent places to RP. James, Forvalaka, Alyx, Doug, Lordston, ForceWolf, Spectre, Leri, Seth. They all went off in search of better atmosphere or real life.

The Lair was never again so strong. From about September of 97 through about August or so of 98, the Lair would have, on average, 35 people in it per night. Even on slow nights. It was the swingin place. There were only about three rooms in all of the entertainment section of Yahoo Chat which had that many people. I can remember Spec often telling the room �Number one again!� *laughs* Damn, I really miss that.

I don�t want to trade what I have now for that, but I would like to get that back once in a while... just have the old group meet up for a week-long RP session or something. That would be fun.

Anyway... When I returned to Yahoo chat and the Lair, there was a new group of people. It didn�t have the same power. Don�t get me wrong, the Lair was still very popular, but the majority of RPers were in their early to mid teens, rather than the mid to late twenties. The tone of RP as a whole had changed. And, there were new rules for RP. The fanatics had gotten into the system and built a website saying what a person could and could not do in RP.