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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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.

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 )

Some people I want to kick. So instead, I will meme.

Song that always makes you think of a plot- That depends. Joy Division always makes me think of Flynn because he's in a Joy Division cover band. Little House~The Fray is Deirdre. Most Dream Theater = Peter. Near to You~A Fine Frenzy is Tristan/Flynn. Breathe Me~Sia is Deirdre after Kait died. Lovecats~The Cure reminds me of Flynn/Quinn because Flynn played it and sang it to Quinn. It also makes me think of Godric because I did horrible things to him while that song played. Anything Muse is what Thomas jogs to DO NOT JUDGE ME and Lovesong~The Cure was what Eamon played to Adrina. Walking on Sunshine is Peter's ringtone because it makes me laugh. Amanda Palmer and Emilie Autumn both have songs I associate with plots but I can't remember them. And there's a VNV Nation song without words which I put on when writing Peter in World Saving Mode. Because I SUCK at action plots. Like...god yes. So I need actiony songs. VNV Nation and the song from the series finale of Buffy by Rob Duncan (which is, by the way, one of the most amazing instrumentals in the history of television, even if I generally pretend that the seventh season of Buffy does not exist)

I think the one song that I associate most with roleplay though, is See the Sky Again by Edwin McCain. And Scout will know why :D. My mobile phone STILL says that when I turn it on. And it was my ringtone for almost three years because it has heavy connections to Peter.

Favorite setting- Uhm. London? I don't know. Anywhere in London. There!

And FYI, random icon WIN

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.

The only character muse I have left in FG is Saint Patrick. Fucksticks. Memetime.

favorite character you’ve ever made ~ Since I already answered this by saying Flynn myeyesarehollow I guess I should talk about someone else. My second and third favourite characters are Peter Kemp and Thomas Littleton, in order. Peter father_peter pretty much made himself (and I have talked him to BITS in this journal because he's my main character. Just follow the tag if you care) and Thomas suave_thomas was an accident. I'll talk about him since I love him to bits and he's Hugh Jackman. Actually he is why I love Hugh Jackman...

He was a plot point in dirty_life to make Peter sad in the beginning and then later to make him happy, and Thomas didn't even have a journal (and was never supposed to since he was...like..dead!) but then I played him in a scene with Scout's Claire (how that is possible is a question for the Dirty Wiki (which is so handy!) and we all loved him. We decided he needed him to be a full character, despite being dead so I made him a journal and I needed a PB. Scout had just seen the 3rd X-Men movie (I had not) and kept showing me pictures of Hugh Jackman who (WAIT FOR IT) I didn't care about at that point. At all. I had seen him in the X-Men movies and just thought he was a hairy git (THAT HURT ME TO TYPE OMFG!). I am actually serious. And so as a JOKE I suggested I use Hugh for Thomas since the character was for Claire (and Peter. Oooooh Cletermas. The smut!) and it would make Scout happy. They convinced me to do it so I did. Without that, I never would have had my Thomas (SO, THANK YOU!). His backstory has changed significantly, as well as the reason he came back AND how because of moving games. He's alive now because I couldn't stand having him dead because I love writing him too much. AND I finally realised if I write the novel with Peter in it, one of the almost everything ever that has to be different is that Thomas HAS to be alive (because bringing people back in the novel will not happen. That's so Buffy/Supernatural). The death in the beginning that starts Peter's emo wangst (this is not true, Peter's emo wangst started when his sister died, but shhh) has to be someone else's.

Sorry, Stuart everscrumptious I love you SO MUCH. You are adorable and silly and Daisy Wenham. But I love Thomas more. He made me love Hugh Jackman. Who I now cannot get enough of. And who does pained acting better than I think anyone does. So you're being sacrificed in novel form. Live on in darker_london

favorite gender to play ~ Male. I love them so much more. Short answer!

Continuing on with the 30 days of RP meme:

day 05 - your favorite crackship ~ You know, most of my crackships in Darker London actually ended up as ships. Leah and I put her Nova and my Razvan your_razvan together for the lols and they ended up being really sweet. Tasha and Hope relinquite_spes weren't originally as serious as they turned out to be. There's the priest and the nun, Ciaran the_sacred_fire and Catalina. I can't think of any more, but it happens with startling regularity.

My favourite however, is father_peter Peter/Jillian. In a scene once, his narrative mentioned she had a nice arse and Leah thought that was hilarious and then we wrote an AU... Now in real Darker London he is in love with her sister and...you know...his WIFE. But I so wish he could be with Jillian because not only is it hot, it's AWESOMELY HOT.

In FG the totally random and non-sexual pairing of Michael and the Loch Ness Monster makes me grin!

day 06 - biggest pet peeve ~ In roleplay? Nikki. She couldn't write (or at least didn't take the time to) and she wouldn't read scenes or she would skim them and then respond. One time we were writing smut and she had her character spontaneously orgasm while apparently standing in the middle of the room, since her girlfriends had moved to the bed in the reply before that. And she missed it. She also never read anything except scenes she was in, which is fine, except then she would miss stuff and have characters post about things when they were no longer relevant or that made no sense with the other things they went on. She also couldn't separate IC from OOC in the worst ways and she made it so hard to write ANYTHING in case she might get angry or flip out. She hated IC conflict and since that's totally my favourite thing, that was an issue!

Token ghost books I buy every time I come to the US acquired! Why they don't sell books like this in NZ and Australia is beyond me. Except in The Haunted Bookshop in Melbourne. Oh Haunted Bookshop, I miss you even though your owner is an insufferable twat. For some weird reason, the guy LOVED me though I thought he would hate me because I look like SUCH a square. But when I asked for something and obviously knew what I wanted I think that helped. Actually, he probably loved me because I practically bought out his entire 'hauntings' section over the course of a year. He said it was harder and harder to find books on hauntings because of the internet, but there are plenty to be found here at Hastings and I found lots in the UK as well. Whatever, Drew is a weird guy. And he runs the Melbourne ghost tour. Which I would TOTALLY recommend if you are in Melbourne and interested in ghosts! It's awesome! Lalala Linky!

ANYWAY, I bought a huge book of tales of haunted places, because those are my favourite. Obviously as I have about 30 of the things. And then I bought Idiots Guide to the Paranormal because it not only talks about ghosts but it has stuff about angels and demons in there too. Which is interesting research for FG. I read about Belial in the car! And there's a section on the exorcism of Annaliese Somethingorother which was what The Exorcism of Emily Rose was based on.

I love these books. There was only one book by Holzer though. No good paranormal section is complete without several Hans Holzers, please. He wrote over a hundred of the things. Holzer died in 2009 and I totally cried because I am a loser. But he inspired my Father Peter father_peter because I wanted a character who knew about the supernatural (and is the reason Peter was in Austria originally, because Holzer is from Vienna) and his ideas of mediumship are still what I use when I write my mediums in Darker London.

Also? Also? I kind of bought The Idiot's Guide because it has a section called Father Peter's last Exorcism which made me laugh because like...MY Peter's last exorcism was Svetlana except it didn't work and Thomas totally died and I laughed out loud IN the store while I was reading what has nothing to do with my characters and is about a Roman Catholic exorcist. So there I am in the New Age aisle, holding a book about the paranormal and cackling. A lady who was walking by gave me a VERY strange look.

It was awesome :D

Video exam went fine! Not OMG FANTASTICALLY GREAT because I cannot relax in a situation like that, but I did everything I was supposed to and though I was obviously not relaxed and sometimes my questions were said in a strange way, I think I did just fine. Of COURSE I had to be interviewing the lady I don't like :( Stupid, bloody Shelley. You QUIT after first term, why the shit are you back for a random video exam, go AWAY why don't you?!

Anyway...trying not to overanalyse it in my head (LOL SOCIAL ANXIETY :| ) to the point of vomiting by doing this meme which I am sure will horrify me more than any one else. It's about explaining the reason you chose certain journal names. Though the FG people will suddenly understand why 10 characters is not a big deal...

( Yes. I do have this many...no they are not all used all the time... )