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

My name is Lara. I love Joy Division, which is totally the most important thing about me. You should also know I am quite sarcastic without having a firm understanding of sarcasm. True story.

I was born in Seattle, Washington, grew up in Kalispell, Montana (AKA HELL), moved to Melbourne Australia in 2003, and Christchurch New Zealand in 2010. I studied half a Bachelor of Fine Arts~Theatre Studies in University before switching to German so I could study abroad in Vienna (2001). Hence, I have studied English, German and Latin at a University level.

I am currently studying a Postgraduate Diploma of Social Work at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand while living in a flat affectionately known as the Lesbian Flat of Doom, with my friends _honeyspider and phfa and my cats, Ariadne and Echo and Alison's cat, Helios (they don't have LJs, they're not old enough yet), all of whom I love dearly.

I'll add anyone to my f-list if they ask, so feel free! I spend most of my time writing, talking about writing, or thinking about writing while watching Most Haunted or something Tim Minchin, Hugh Jackman or Dylan Moran related. Or singing. I love singing, and I'm actually good, which tends to help! I can play the flute and the piccolo, the guitar and the ukulele, and I used to play the viola but then I sold it to a 3-fingered man. True story.

( A very important thing to know, is that I ramble. So there is more under here! )

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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.

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*

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! )

I am SO writing my essay on vicarious trauma right now! (Actually, reading the Memitim's bio on FG just actually gave me the missing start of my novel wouldn'tyouknowit, so I did that too. Essay and novel. And...this. Hush :D) I am continuing my 30 days of RP meme!

day 03 - your favorite female pb - This one is hard. I prefer to play men, and I think my male characters are always more well-rounded. My first original character I used in roleplay, however, was deirdre_ionuin my Deirdre Gallagher. She's now a rock star. When I started her in April, 2005, she was just a shy 16-year-old girl who didn't know what was going on. I stated that she was a redhead because I modeled her on my Kara Kent character from Superman (DO SHUT UP) and she had red hair. I used stock photos forever, until I saw all these lovely icons of this redheaded model on Leah's journal. And I thought...oh, I could use the photos of HER even though Deirdre is supposed to have green eyes and the model has blue eyes.

I had no idea that this was not a strange concept. It was called a played-by or PB. I thought I was being so clever to use an actual person for her photos, I am not even kidding. And the PB I found? Cintia Dicker. I think EVERY ROLEPLAY has or has had a Cintia in it. Because she is beautiful, she makes more than one face, and there are photos of her everywhere. So I thought I was being original and I was, in fact, being so unoriginal it's insane. Still, I love her. And over the past five and half years I have lived with Deirdre in my head, Cintia has become synonymous with her for me. I could never use her as anyone else, even though I can use Dylan Moran as someone other than Peter (which is mind-boggling). She's the perfect fit. Some PBs fit mostly and you just fudge the rest, but no. She is so perfect, Deirdre's eyes are now blue. Is she my favourite, however? I am not sure. I love using Emilie Autumn and Amanda Palmer as well. I just use Cintia more. And that is that!

day 04 - your favorite ship - HAH! Yeah, no contest. My Flynn myeyesarehollow and his husband, Quinn quinntaessentia. I will try to make this not so tl;dr. Flynn was in the PIRA. He met Quinn (they both had different names then but changed them for legal reasons oooOOOo) and had the hots for him. They made friends and Quinn showed Flynn violence isn't the way. Flynn's brother Frankie was angry and framed Flynn for several things including his own arrest. His parents kicked him out of home and Quinn went with him. They were homeless in Dublin and Flynn watched Quinn deteriorate. When he was sure Quinn might die, Flynn called Quinn's parents who had reported him as a runaway and he told them where Quinn was. Thus leading to six years of separation in which Quinn was loved by his family and Flynn was homeless.

Cut to three years ago when they reunited. They are, without a doubt, the sweetest thing I have ever written. And Quinn wasn't even supposed to be the random boy Flynn mentioned to his friend when talking about his past. I had created the character of Quinn a year before I made Flynn and suddenly Quinn was adamant he was this 'Ardal' Flynn kept talking about. I checked his backstory and everything he had said and it actually fit without me realising. I had no idea. I was creeped out. So I threw them together to see what would happen and holy crap, you guys. When I write them, I feel better about the world. They just love each other and I can't get enough.

Which is why I do terrible things to them sometimes, shhhh. They conquer all. Their tag is here with the oldest stuff way back, obviously. There are so many scenes there because I am insane.

OMFG I love them. Seriously. I love them waaaayyy too much.

I also love Spectre/Thomas and Aly/Peter. (And Noah/Daria YAY) They don't even come close to the love I feel for these guys though!

I am freaking moving to London. Just so you know you're relocating, Baby :D Dear LORD I love it. I love it so much, I hate that I have to go tomorrow DESPITE THE FACT that I have wanted to visit Ireland since I was BORN. Not that I am not excited, by the way, because OMG Ireland omg. But really, I have had the BEST time. I adored seeing Clare, Lisa, Jess and Muz, and I got to do so many awesome things! Clare is a blast and I am keeping her so :P

Today we went to the Globe theatre where Peter got married! He didn't get married IN the theatre, there are rooms in the complex you can rent and he got married in one of them. See, I didn't make it up! That was the room he got married in and, CLARE! I found out it IS the room with the tree! So we DID go there! MUahahahaaaa tree (which you can see in the side of the picture on the site I linked! ...and you can see the prop room we saw. Hot). That's why it has a stage, which was where they would have gotten married omg yay! (Yes, they are fake. Shut up, so is Sherlock Holmes and I took a picture of 'his' toilet :D)

The stage was awesome, and the tour guide was HILARIOUS. She said things like "they would come and have their beer and that's why the stage is so high. You can imagine what it might have been like. One of the crowd gets staggering drunk and he decides he should give Hamlet a hug because he hasn't been having a very nice time, the actors could just kick them back down again". She was AWESOME. Fabulously entertaining. I loved seeing the place AND I bought two shirts, one with Ophelia's crazy song, and one that says 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' :D I love Shakespeare...hardcore.

After that, we took a riverboat cruise with a 'tour guide' who wasn't actually a tour guide, but HE was hilarious too "From here you can see Shakespeare's Globe where you can see Romeo and Juliet and...and...and...one of the other ones". From Westminster where the boat dropped us off, we went to see Westminster Abbey, which is incredible, and then I wanted a picture of the guards with the fuzzy hats. Which saw us heading to Buckingham Palace and then me choosing a way to go which was WRONG and we walked ALL THE WAY around Hyde or Green park (one of them) before ending up about 200 metres from where we started and there the guards were. Ooops. My bad... But I got the pictures! And Clare didn't kick me, YAY!

From there we headed to Covent Garden and had the MOST AMAZING COOKIES and saw the opera house where the Royal Ballet Company performs and I squealed, and then we headed to a cafe to drink more drinks (I love pineapple juice). And when Muz joined us, we went for Mexican food! LOVE! And then I had to say goodbye! I am totally bummed because I already miss Clare and I LOVE it here. I didn't expect to find a place I love as much as Vienna, but there you go! I did. And it has nothing to do with Darker London, either, because I can write about a place and not love it. I just love being here. I love the feel of it. I love the city and the history. It's amazing. Oh, and I got a sunburn. Stupid Irish skin.

Which brings me to Ireland. Tomorrow I head to Dublin and I finally get to set foot in Ireland and I am SO excited. London was about Peter, Darker London wise, and Dublin is about Flynn and Quinn. Well, and Deirdre since she is actually FROM there, but pffft, my boys are way more important (if you know her, you cannot imagine the sound she just made ahahhaa). It's going to be amazing, I know it. I can't say goodbye to London yet, though. In the morning, I'm going for a last walk in Regents Park. I'm getting up early to do it. It's just something that has to be done.

:D New photos start here