Thoughts on the Journey

I'm having a wonderful birthday so far. I slept in a little later than I meant to before driving to Jackson to hang out with dodger_sister, who wrote me a Charles/Erik story called Burned in all the Best Ways as a present and gave me a comic retelling of the Hades and Persephone story. andrealyn, this fic had parts that made me think of threading with you and how Charles and Erik get under each other's skin. We watched The Faculty, ate delicious hoagies and cupcakes and had a lazy day.

I talked to my parents and one of my brothers and family called to sing me happy birthday, even one of their dogs was getting into it and barking in the background.

Tomorrow I'm going to treat myself to a massage and other fun things, then Sunday, brunch with the_croupier. I'm considering this weekend also posting Charles in celebrating getting his degree as that should be fun. All the plot stuff for that cast is coming together and I love it, soon we can play in recruiting time and have mutants in the Bar together.

My parents told me there's a package in the mail for me and my day has been full of well wishes. Life is feeling wonderful and I plan on stretching my celebrating out.

Today I also ended up writing quite a lot of FridayFics on Twitter, which I'm going to copy and paste here. At some point I'll put them up on Ao3, but or now, this is the best way for me to keep track of them. I think I've caught everything but there are always so many great prompts and fills.

( In which I write and tweet a lot. )

This isn't going to be terribly detailed but I want to copy and paste the Twitter fics I've been doing since ladyoflorien started the idea. I'm doing Twitter names as again it helps me trace what I wrote. If I write more, I'll try and add them here or if not I'll do them on another post.

Charles/Ruby for @minkhollow42
Her mind felt like it was aching to be free as her body pressed against him. In his ear, she whispered, "Follow me." "Yes."

Red Pollard/Tiwa for @thisisyourfault
He thought he knew how to fly on the back of a horse with mane and tail flying. She laughed before taking him on her wings.

All these three were for @wanderlustlover
Jane & Edward -- hearts arts
She had been told that she wrote the truths of love and nodded. He never told her such things just listened to the unsaid.

Charles & Jean -- the echo of my heart
They were both too full and full of holes; all the secrets rested with them as the world took in price their loves and hope.

Tumnus & Marian -- sometimes all you have is tea
The tea set was still cracked from the wolves. He'd always kept it and now her fingers traced a crack as he played of loss.

Dem and Gus for Amber (@afullmargin)
He was laughing, he hadn't thought you laughed in bed with a woman. She just smiled and said, no, laugh and live with me, Gus.

My character choice-ill also for Amber
William didn't have time to be ill, too much to be done. Michael didn't cluck, just got him soup and quietly took care of him.

Dixie and William for Missy (@miz_missy)
She was always kind and didn't ask too many questions. Today though she looked close to crying, so he took care of her for once.

Today's been a good day, my present shopping is going well and work went quickly. I've been having lots of wonderful RP threads and I'm just feeling hopeful. Here's the five word meme that appeared on kit_the_brave's journal.

Comment to this post, and I will list five things I associate with you, They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your LJ (or just add a reply back to me). Other people (including me) can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

Library school
I just finished my masters' degree at the University of Michigan School of Information and I feel like I keep coming up for breath. It was an amazing two years full of so many projects and long nights and hope. As I'm still working on campus as a librarian, I keep expecting to have a paper due and it's weird but nice not to. Now I'm trying to find a job but I know that I'm in the right profession.

Narnia
I think the Narnia books were the first series that I really went head first into as a little kid. They're still some of my favorite books and I've enjoyed the movie adaptations. I grew up with the BBC ones and liked the newer ones though I've yet to see Dawn Treader. It's not the most complex world building but Narnia feels true and I love that about it. My confession is that even though I own it, I have yet to actually read The Last Battle since I don't want the series to end. I've felt that way since I think I was about twelve when I decided that I wouldn't read it. And another odd story is that I didn't know about the Christian allegory element until I went to college and a friend told me about it. I admit I felt a bit stupid about it but they're beautiful fantasy first for me. Using the icon because it's a Narnian one I don't use a lot and the casting for Kirke just felt right for me.

Milliways
This coming February will be my fifth year at Milliways and it's one of my favorite communities to ever be a member of. I've found friends, improved my writing and seen my life and circles grow. Somehow I've gone from just playing Will Scarlett to having a roster of eight pups and then two that live over at Mixed Muses.

East Coast
I grew up in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and I consider Philadelphia to be my city. I love the variety of the East Coast and it's one of my favorite places. In terms of what I like to eat and some of my ideas, I know my East Coastness really comes through at times. One of the weird ways it does is my religion as I was raised a Quaker. In Pennsylvania, that's fairly normal but getting farther out and people look confused.

Vorkosigans
I love this series so much. It's how to do character and plot and world building right. The friend who told me about the Christian allegories in Narnia also hooked me on the Vorkosigan books. Basically she had all of them and just kept giving them to me and I read and read. I own almost all of them and they're a series I constantly go back and reread, which I only do with the ones I really love.

This week has been all over the place for me with more down than ups, but I've mainly made it through. One thing that started me off on a not great foot was that on Monday I worked a much longer day than normal, five hours instead of three and it left me tired.

The good that balanced it was I'm going to be on the East Coast during Thanksgiving break actually the week around it leaving on Monday and coming back the next Tuesday. I'm going to be trying flying into Baltimore and taking Amtrak to Wilmington to connect with my parents. The hope is that during the break I might do some informational interviews and meet up with people who know library folks. Also I get to see my family and the ocean, I'm such a coastal girl.

So that's a good and I'm hearing positive things about the story I posted last weekend, which makes me happy. Charles Xavier from First Class is an incredibly easy voice for me to write and last night I started on another story about him, this one about dreams.

Tuesday had a nice low as my shark week hit right after I'd come back from a meeting, which meant I had to go out again. Wednesday and Thursday I didn't work but Wednesday I wanted to curl up and Thursday I felt better but still low on energy.

Today was thankfully quiet at the library, all of the printers worked and then I came out. There was a thing I thought about going to tonight, but I didn't want to walk in the cold again. Tomorrow I'm working an extra shift in the morning, but it should be quiet and I can do more writing.

Other fun and random thing that happened this week was I drove to the mall to get a new watchband and the watch kiosk is near Teavana. I've been curious about Teavana since I know a lot of people who adore tea love it. Well, they have delicious tea and incredible sales people since I bought more than I meant to. Part of this was due to me feeling sore and tired, but it made me a little grumpy as I can afford it but felt a little led. The good is that I have delicious Jasmine tea and a huge tea tin that will probably hold my PG tips when I finish the Jasmine because that's the only one I buy in a pound or so measures. Though I'm going to be wary if I go there again, because I'm willing to pay for tea, it's just paying for an unexpected experience isn't my favorite. For now I'll keep looking at their stuff online because someday I'd love to have a travel tumbler for tea.

I love Halloween and I want to try and do something as I work at the undergrad desk in the afternoon, but so far anything more than my fox makeup is feeling a bit much. In my closet I've got a shirt that's cut like a men's almost musketeer shirt and I might try doing something with that.

For Milliways I've got some ideas for my pups. I'm considering two conversation with dead people for William and Tumnus and I want to put William in Logan Lerman's awful wig and costume from the new Musketeers movie, but all his icon space is full. I know I'll end up doing it for him, I just need to make the icon and decide if this is a good excuse to buy more icon space.

This is a terribly rambling entry but it's been that kind of week and I'm currently sore and cold. Things will get better.

As inspired by in_the_blue I'm going to write about the various characters that I love playing. One thing that I found rather challenging as I was thinking about this is how to divide up this list since I think of my characters in different ways. I have a feeling that what I start out writing might not be what I end up with.

My Boys: Will Scarlett (Robin Hood), Sameth (Abhorsen Chronicles), William Evans (3:10 to Yuma)
Will is the first character that I ever wrote fanfiction abut when I didn't even know what it was because I wanted to know more. He represents one of my favorite kinds of characters which three boys capture, the side character who's so key, has their own issues and sometimes is forgotten. I love finding these characters and bringing out their stories and fixing them. All of these boys have issues with knowing who they are and where they fit in their worlds.

Will Scarlett does better since thanks to Robin Hood, he knows who he is but one thing that happens when I play him is he's conscious of all that he doesn't know. Sameth on the other hand has what he's meant to be doing but its not what makes him happy so he's constantly feeling like he's disappointing people. William is trying to fill his father shoes and take care of his family and find his own way. I think these boys capture a lot of my personal insecurities and I like that I can fix theirs since it gives me ideas about how to deal with my own.

Themselves: Demeter (Greek Mythology), Moist von Lipwig (Discworld), The Pirate King (The Pirates of Penzance)
What I love playing with these three is that they know who they are and don't have to worry about anyone's ideas. Demeter makes me happy because she's so alive and embraces life from the cold of winter to the glory of spring. In another life, I pursued Classics into a higher degree and she lets me play with my utter love of the strange ways of the Greeks.

Moist is tricky and always up to something, he just has fun with the world too but in a more selfish way than Demeter. I wish I could get away with what he does and I adore playing someone who tries to game the world. The Pirate King is pure Gilbert and Sullivan combined with Kevin Kline, I don't play him very often because he's not a sustaining voice. He's a comet that goes through and burns things in its wake.

Shifting but Sure: Jane Austen (Becoming Jane), Tumnus (Chronicles of Narnia), Tiwa (Changeling OC)
These three characters have a sense of where they're going and they're still on that journey. Becoming Jane is a movie that I fell in love with the first time I saw it in Wellington right around my birthday, it was beautiful and witty and as someone who adores Jane Austen it made me happy. Jane is a character that I thought about playing since I first saw the movie but I was worried about messing her up. It took dynastessa who kept being stubborn to get me to play her. Now I adore her, she's not an easy one to play, because I hold myself to a high standard with her speech and manner.

Tumnus is another one that I just love but never even though I would play. I think once in a DE I mentioned that he was a character I could imagine playing and someone told me he was free. Then suddenly I was playing him, he's a quiet character but another one that I feel careful with since he's my childhood. He's found his place and he fits there. Tiwa, I love Tiwa because she's my chance to play a Changeling again and keep connecting to New Zealand. She's a shapeshifter who is learning to be a teacher and she has such a web of people in mixed_muses and I have such fun with her journey.

Connecting Tissue
One thing I've discovered about myself in my many years of roleplaying from tabletop to Larp to online is that I tend to play characters that I have things in common with and that aren't of the modern world. I've always loved reading fantasy, but the kind of fantasy where magic is just out of the corner of your eye is one of my favorite types. Charles De Lint writes this type amazingly well and one reason I got into Changeling: The Dreaming was because it felt like it could be his world.

For me Milliways has that same feel to it, magic can be hard to miss or just out of the corner of your eye. I tend to play characters that make people blink and reconsider their sense of things as they're from a place that's not Earth or a time when not everyone got an education. The past is another world and that's what makes is so fascinating.

I really enjoyed writing this and I know that I missed some things so I'd love anyone's questions, because I know what makes sense to me might not to anyone else.

Work took far too long and I didn't get as much done as I wanted to so I'm not going to think about it.

Instead I'm going to do a meme from walksbyherself, What are you pups like in the sack?

Will Scarlett
( Bachelor #1 )

Sameth
( Bachelor #2 )

Tumnus isn't playing because it breaks my brain.

The Pirate King
( Bachelor #3 )

Moist von Lipwig
( Bachelor #4 )

Demeter
( Bachelorette #1 )

Jane Austen
( Bachelorette #2 )

Tiwa
( Bachelorette #3 )

This reminds me that I really need to ask the guy that I like out and this helps a bit of my tenseness. The end of this semester is going to be long and crazy but I can do it.

I have about fifteen minutes or so before I have to go to class and its been a good day so far so I thought I'd post a few of those RP memes that are going about and something from bookelfe

Ask me anything!!

( My Roleplaying History )

( My Muses' Names )

Di's here and I'm feeling utterly happy and content.

Also I just wrote a Tumnus' OOM, so I can start moving him towards the Golden Age.

fire_and_a_rose, I hope this is a good start, I'm doing my best to establish things and also the idea has been rattling around a bit for me.