It's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light...

It is almost time, once again, for the girls of the LFoD to gather together and share a night of terrifying movies and lots and lots of sugar. This is how we celebrate Halloween in NZ. Emphasis on WE since most people don't.

So today I pulled myself out of bed (at like 4 PM shhh) and went into Riccarton to fetch supplies. It's also my oldest original character's 23rd birthday today. She was 16 when I made her. I thought the situation called for cheesecake. Bailey's cheesecake. Cause, like...she's Irish. Anyway, then I went and purchased two bags of junk food that is necessary for Halloween.

I decided to catch a different bus home today simply because it got there before the normal Orbiter bus I get. We have a new central bus station and I haven't been in there yet. It's this temporary thing in the middle of town and seeing it made me burst with love for this city. It's trying so hard.

We turned out of the bus station and onto a street. We were tooling along and everyone went silent. I looked around at the gaping, empty spaces where buildings used to be and I had no idea where I was. I didn't recognise the street so I just figured it was one of the side-streets in town. And then I noticed the Dick Smith Ness used to work at and realised I was on Columbo Street. For non-locals, that's one of the main streets through town. And it's just...gone. When I realised where I was, I felt like I might vomit. This is real. It really happened. It's not going away. And it's happening other places and it's so much worse and blahblahblah yuck.

So I had burgers and Simpsons and then I ate cheesecake. Tomorrow there will be tea and then pumpkin soup and horror movies. Clinging to the nice things is better than vomiting in horror because the world seriously, absolutely sucks.

Happy birthday, Deirdre. No character has ever made me laugh and scream and cry and want to strangle and hug a fictional person at the same time as much as you have. Thank you for being part of my brain. You make it just that little bit nicer.

The results of my second blood test showed no long-term problems (and that I have good cholesterol, who knew!?) so it's post-viral fatigue for sure. Then my doctor said "I know you're incredibly pale, but sometimes going out in the sun can help" and I gave her a Look. Instead she prescribed me Vitamin D (my doctor is an enabler!) which I suspect might actually have been speed.

She did warn me that the first few days after taking the high dose Vitamin D, I might feel like I had energy and not to overdo it. I didn't believe her...

Today I cleaned the house and the kitchen and did the dishes and wrote yet another four scenes and made a bunch of icons I have been stalling on, and I collected sources for my next assignment and started mapping it out. That's more than I have done in a day since May. I am now sure that the reason I felt inspired and wrote so much yesterday is simply because the energy gave me the mental facilities to handle it when I was using most of my brain to just deal with being awake before.

Of course I probably overdid it because I'm like that, but I just felt so awesome and didn't want to waste it! I didn't realise I actually completely forgot what energy felt like. It's kind of impressive.

Helios just grabbed the package of cat treats off the side table and ran out of the room with them so I'd better go catch him! :D

I just wrote 8,099 words in Darker London. I haven't written anything significant there since February at least. And today was 11 scenes (one backdated). And I feel more like myself than I have in months.

I forgot how good just writing by myself can feel, not that I am saying it's better than writing with someone else. It's just different because you have to create everything from start to finish and all of it in between. I opened windows and had no idea what I was going to wrote about and things flowed. It's been FOREVER since I was able to do that. Everything has to be planned and thought of beforehand recently and if it isn't planned it doesn't happen. But not today, this was just "I want to write for Deirdre" BAM. Scene.

It's like a weight lifted off my chest that I didn't even know was there. I love my creative outlets. But Darker London will always own my soul because those characters are mine and not borrowed from elsewhere. And it feels good to write something that is absolutely and completely yours and to write it yourself. I love writing with other people, but I did this all by myself and I am proud I finally could again.

Fuck, I feel awesome.

I am about to talk about characters I created rather a lot. So either bear with me, or don't bother reading this. If you don't understand what it's like having characters you care about in your head, this will likely read like nonsense.

ANYWAY yesterday was supposed to be my Deirdre's (deirdre_ionuin) wedding. And I didn't write it because arrggghhhh she's my first character and it HURTS ME. Only because her wedding is going to go horribly wrong because in her grief over losing her girlfriend, she's marrying a Henry Cavill-shaped DOUCHEBAG. The marriage is going to last about 4 hours. Which is fine, I have been working up to this plot for like...A YEAR NOW and I knew it was coming, but it hurts. So I didn't write it. But now I have to, because it's no longer the 19th in London any more and it's heading on towards the 21st here in NZ.

I had to kill my Thomas (LOL THAT DIDN'T LAST LONG but I thought it would at the time) and that hurt, but this is different. Deirdre is different in my head. For years, she was all tumultuous and oooommmmmgggggg but I fixed her (LOL) by giving her babies. It actually mellowed her out, hush. And she has been lovely and yet still Deirdre like (her journal still cracks me up every time) since then. And I'm just worried that this plot will bring her right back to where she was, pre-baby. Which is AWESOME and I love playing out IC consequences 99.9% of the time...

But here's the clincher. I FEEL GUILTY FOR DELIBERATELY HURTING HER. I never feel this way really. I love causing my characters pain. See Flynn, Peter, Thomas, etc. etc. etc. I love it when OTHER people cause my characters pain (*cough*Saint Patrick*cough*) but Deirdre has always been different and I don't know why.

Stupid Irish red heads ;) They get me all mucked up inside.

Okay. Imma go break my Deirdre's heart. *sob*

Hahahhaha! So it was my lovely character Julian's 20th birthday today (WEREN'T YOU 16 YESTERDAY, JULIAN, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?!) and I posted in his journal about it. And a few minutes later I got an amusing spam reply.

Oh yes, I will totally read your horoscope except it's a ROLE PLAYING JOURNAL and says so in the userinfo. Of course trying to talk sense into spammers is probably a sign of insanity...

And amusement aside, I am annoyed at LJ because that is SO not the icon I chose for Julian's post. It was supposed to be his grinning one. He is talking about ponies and birthdays and his daughter Aislinn. He would not be brooding... I edited it and it STILL won't show the right one. I hate it when LJ does that. I wrote this horrible scene with Flynn and the icon LJ insists on showing is Flynn, grinning away. YAY, BEING BEATEN UP IS AWESOME!

Stupid LJ.

But I freaking love Julian...

Today I visited a Dylan Moran forum I hadn't been to since commenting in early October. Too many assignments. ANYWAY I found the most lovely comment ever. So I took a screencap.

( It made me all warm on the inside )

This is the same thread someone else was fangirling over Darker London and Peter on a while back. I made a post, but I have no idea where it is now. I love this group of people. They are so wonderful and supportive and awesome and that comment just made my freaking week.

So I dedicated a Dylan Moran bases post to them over on burlesque_show :D

EDIT: OMG MY GOD I didn't even think to check my inbox there! This has been there since MARCH or something... I feel so bad for not noticing but it seriously made me SOB with happiness.

( ILY )

I need to go to BED. I've been up for hours, revelling in the fact that I wrote this scene in Darker London that was actually longer than like ten lines (my concentration, she has been minimal, I have a half-finished Flynn scene from forever ago, augh) and I kind of love it. I love writing slightly messed up things and apparently I needed Saint Patrick in Darker London. So this is what his life would be like if he wasn't a Saint, and he had been kidnapped by a crazy band of priests called the Templar who still think like the Spanish Inquisition. (Also, Seamus Finnegan wasn't intentional and I only figured out why Seamus came to me as a middle name an hour after I wrote it.)

Oh, Patrick. Apparently I love you no matter where you are. And now I will torture you with religious crazies. Wheeee!

Now. Bed. Or...The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Yes, that is more constructive!

Edit: OH MY GOD my kitten is adorable! Ariadne just tried to climb my guitar because she was trying to get at something. I picked her up and she immediately started purring and then I saw she wanted my Halloween Chinese lantern on the wall. I held her out to it, she poked it tentatively with he paw, squeaked in what I assume was terror, and leaped out of my hands to run down the hall.

She is the cutest little freak in the world!

Very few people will even understand this, but Darker London character macros with Mean Girls quotes are AWESOME. See?

What is also awesome? Classes are over for the year. I took a night off because today was helli-stressful. Tomorrow and Friday I have to finish my research proposal and then I want to study for my exam on the weekend. And sleep. Oh my HOLY BOLOGNA will I sleep this weekend. Forever. So tired. So sick of writing essays and essays and stressing and studying and essays and being so distracted by aftershocks too. My video exam today went HORRIBLY because I couldn't focus. Doesn't matter though, I have an A+ in the class so even if I totally bombed, I will get points for introducing myself and, you know, showing up so I'll pass and that's all that matters. I did my mihi too today and it turned out really well. That Wednesday afternoon culture class was so sad to leave. I cried and we all hugged and ate cake because we have SpEcIaL LoVe.

Just 2,500 words more, and one exam I am not worried about because I know exactly what to study, and I am DONE. Until next year. Which will be even more full on. Monday 9-6, Tuesday through Friday 9-5 practicums.

Awesome :|

Favorite plot you’ve done ~ This is actually really hard! in Darker London tiems Deirdre has been around since April 2005, and Peter (and Thomas as a consequence) since February 2006 so they've done so much. Almost 8,500 posts, it's hard to pick out a favourite plot, but I GUESS it would be Peter's first arc. Where he started off as a wayward priest who didn't understand a thing about what he was fighting against (demons, since one killed Thomas), and ended up saving someone who WAS the very thing he started off fighting against (a demon named Deirdre) because he realised he was Dumbledore he loved her (FATHERLY LOVE HERE, PEOPLE) and love was a much better tool to use to save people than hate was like Dumbledore. So now he saves demons from themselves by the dozens. But now it's old news. Back then, it was NEW and SHINY because he was learning too. And in there is all his falling away from the church, and learning what demons actually ARE because he had no idea, and I really love it quite a lot. It was a several month long plot and that is what I would novelise (drastically changed though) if I novelised him!

I love the Templar too, though. So I would work them into his novel, under a different name, since 'Templar' gives other connotations and even though that was INTENDED, it's different when it's not role play :D

Weirdest plot you’ve joined ~ Uhm...well lots of plots I have played are weird, but most of Darker London is...well...dark. In FG I haven't really done many PLOTS yet. In Dirty Life my plot isn't weird, it's AWEsome and I will write more of Nicholas being awkward when I finish those essays I am currently avoiding! I guess I will answer this question with the weirdest scenes I have ever done. There was the scene where Peter's daughter's decorated him in his sleep and named him Princess Strawberry CocoButterLove because I felt like writing something cutesie, and then there is this scene with people who hadn't been in the outside world for years making sense of modern day London AND the famous Teletubby scene. I cannot actually FIND the scene in question, but I copied it and pasted it in my own journal here. I was in a weird mood that day. There are Teletubbies. Okay, people IN Teletubby costumes, but still.

( Then I found a post of my favourite one-liners my characters said to my characters! )

A memory ~ In roleplay? Hmm. Well I remember the creation of father_peter vividly, but I have talked about it a million times. I wanted a character who knew about supernatural things to guide Deirdre the demon through her...demonness. And after having listened to the commentary on The Amityville Horror where Hans Holzer (♥) was talking about priests who do exorcism, I created the character of Peter who was originally a monk and in one scene (which seems SO insignificant, but it really isn't). Then I decided to flesh him out. And the bastard never shut up. The moment I decided to write him, I sat down and planned out the next several months and then wrote 30 pages of stuff over a weekend. It was...like a freaking mind-meld. And I have since gone back to fix up that scene since he became a priest instead of a monk and...such.

Now I have posted over 1,500 scenes with him in darker_london and I did this 100 things about Peter Kemp (which I added a bunch of shit too, but it's all written in a notebook somewhere. That is SO out of date!) and then I did another 100 things as well. Because I CAN. I fleshed out his family too. Most of them are arseholes :D

Uhm. That's all, really.

A graphic you’re proud of

Uh...long story. But I typo a lot and Peter was my second character. Deirdre was my first and I had written her for nearly a year before Peter came along. I was so used to writing 'she' and 'her' I kept typing that for Peter as well. I think it was Scout or someone in the conversation window who dubbed him Mother Peter. And then there was a cracky conversation on the OOC community for Dirty Life which involved Mother Peter being a lesbian though I can't remember why...

Anyway, years later IN GAME Deirdre joined an online 'roleplay' set in Melbourne (where I was at the time) and she played a nun while using her Peter as the PB. Why? Because I think I'm hilarious.

So I made this... and this: mother_peter

It's supposed to be badly done. And every time I see it, I laugh my arse off.