I haven't logged into Juuniper or Fflewr since February 2008. I haven't logged into Khaeli or Khree since July 2009. Both Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft, the games in which I played these toons, have been uninstalled from my computer. For a variety of reasons, I don't think I'll play again, and yet despite this, I still feel an attachment to these characters I played. I'd never sell the accounts. (Well duh, it's against the EULA -- so of course I wouldn't!) I'd never delete them.

I wore a kickass new Cobra Commander t-shirt today, my affinity with Cobra stemming from my little brother's insistence that I play with the (5 or so) Cobra action figures while he tried to destroy me with his (3425 or so) GI Joes. But the Cobra action figures, the Smurfs that I'd sometimes enlist to help the Joes (OMG, this would piss Fred off to no end), my dolls -- I sold them all when I'd outgrown out playing with them. When I'd decided I was done with a toy -- even if it was a toy I dearly cherished -- I felt no need to hang on to it. (There are a few exceptions of course. I still have a Cabbage Patch kid doll somewhere. And I do kick myself for selling that Skipper whose arm you could twist to make her boobs grow...)

So why do I care about preserving an avatar? I mean, yes, I leveled those toons. I spent a lot of time and care equipping them, mastering the skills of their particular class. (Hell, I even blogged about my discipline priest for a while). But I wouldn't say that I spent any more time immersed in a world of roleplaying with video game characters than I did roleplaying with action figures. Is this some sort of strange adult compulsion to collect (the same compulsion that has me tacking unopened boxes of Edgar Allen Poe, Sigmund Freud, and Rosie the Riveter action figures on my office wall)? Do I think somewhere down the road I'm going to be struck with the same nostalgia to play World of Warcraft that prompted me to buy a Cobra Commander t-shirt, and I'll suddenly decide I really want to log in and play my druid?

Or am I holding on for other reasons altogether? Why do I care about pixels? (And, of course, why the hell do I care about Cobra Commander?!)