featherxquill

So, lately I've been seeing a whole lot of ads for baitandbleed RPG popping up all over my flist, and like anyone with a penchant for intriguing RP worlds and few powers of resistance, I wandered over and took a look.

Damn, it looks interesting. Fascinating premise - a world you could really flail around in. Characters who seem solidly written, well-thought and not over the top drama. Age-appropriate and not all heroin-chic supermodel PBs (an important thing for me. Nothing makes me run away from a game faster than a fifty-year-old character played by a thirty-year-old PB, or a post-Azkaban Deatheater who's all chiselled-sexy without a grey hair to show for his imprisonment). I decided I probably didn't have time for a game, then left the tab open, then went back to peek at what the minimum posting requirements would be, and read the rules. Everything looked awesome and totally do-able.

Until I came to the part about posting format, which is in the form of present tense,

*actions inside asterisk*

and dialogue in plain text.

And immediately I cringed, because that would drive me insane.

I know it's something that is fairly common in RPG writing, and lots of people seem comfortable with it, but it made me curious about whether I am in a minority. They have a suggestion box over at baitandbleed, and I'm considering leaving a comment about it, but I don't want it to sound like 'I don't like this one aspect of your game so you should totally change it for me, because I'm a special snowflake'. The Mods have created an awesome premise, and what looks like it will be a fabulous game, and they are entitled to run it in whatever way they and their players wish. The only reason I am even considering posting a comment about it is because I am wondering if other people might be like me and put off by something like that, and then they just don't apply, and the Mods never have any idea that this might have been an issue for some people that stopped them from applying.

So. Curious. Is it just me, or are there people on my flist who would also be put off by playing that way? I know there are RPers from all sorts of places on my flist, who play in all kinds of different ways, so I am curious about your opinions. Would you be put off? And, if not, would you be put off by a 'paragraphs and quotation marks' fic style of writing?



Also, Firefox, where is my squiggly red line spellchecker? You can't give me that most of the time and then just, not, today, for some reason, because it makes it look like an over-enthusiastic monkey typed my LJ posts. I am used to the red line telling me when I spell a word wrong, so I forget to check when it does not appear. Please return it forthwith.

When road_ahead announced that it was closing, I told myself I might take a break from RP for a while. Apparently, I fail completely at abstinence, because in the space of a few days I signed up for not one but two brand new games. I'm so excited I could burst.

Bloodlines is a canon-based, post-DH game set in 2002. The wizarding world has regained its equilibrium after the war, but is about to be thrown into fear and chaos again. I'll be playing Rita Skeeter - Rufus Scrimgeour's widow and one of the founders of the new Independent newspaper. There's already heaps of prep and excitement going on behind the scenes. Everyone is really enthusiastic. I would especially love to see some more older gen for my girl to interact with. Kingsley (Auror, not Minister)? Narcissa? Irma? Andromeda? Anyone! *pokes older-gen lovers on flist*

( More info about Bloodlines! )


Waking Pandora is an AU, post-apocalyptic survival game, in which there are only a small number of people left alive, who must start from scratch. The premise is absolutely awesome, and I'm so excited about playing in something so different. I'll be playing Poppy Pomfrey (wp_poppy) there, and I'd love to see some of you! Take a look under the cut and check out the available cast.

( More info about Waking Pandora! )

So. An update. It's been a while since I made a real one.

i. stoatshead_hill is now closed, and I finished my final thread there a few days ago. Rita and Kingsley have their complicated fading off into the sunset, and Ollivander departed on the next great adventure. Which made me cry. A lot. I'm sad we're done there, but at the same time I'm glad it happened when it did, while we all cared enough to post our characters' final on-screen moments and draw their stories to a close. It was a fun game, and I met so many amazing people playing in it, and those frienships won't fade.

ii. road_ahead is stronger than ever. The upheaval there must be like a month ago now, but it's actually been really awesome for the game as a whole. The cast is smaller now (but not too small) and it feels sort of homey and everyone-knows-everyone. I like it. There have been two giant parties this month, one which Rita really enjoyed (with her boy toy on her arm and getting looks from people and making them wonder. Being surprising is what she loves most in the world) and one which I enjoyed but she was sort of meh about. I'm still not entirely comfortable with the whole muggleborn!Ravenclaw Rita thing, but I'm enjoying her and she's an interesting challenge. I think my personal canon for her will always be as a pureblood Slytherin.

ii. Working on my hp_beholder fic, which will definitely be finished by the deadline, and hoping to finish my claim for the erotic_elves challenge as well, though I am more concerned about the exchange fic that is for someone. I really shouldn't sign up for things, but I do love the beholder assignment. On that note: has anyone on my flist been to Eastern Europe? I'd like an opinion on, er, something. Leave a comment? *hopeful smile*

iii. Still working at the supermarket and doing little else. Looking for more work. Am thinking I shall have to do work experience for free, because no one seems to want me on a degree and four years retail experience. Giving it another few weeeks before I start making enquiries. Also I have a stupid crush on someone I work with, who is very much a straight married woman and why, brain, why do you do this to me? I'll probably get over it in a few weeks like I did the crush I had on another straight married woman who works there, but god, wtf. There are plenty of hot young men working there too, and I am very appreciative of and sometimes interested in them, but I get these stupid crushes on completely unavailable women. Seriously, WHY?

( Some stories of the supermarket )

iv. I always have a bajillion things to say when I'm not updating, but then the text box comes up and I can't think of anything. I should just update whenever I think of things and not plan to do it later. But then what kind of procrastinator would I be?

v. Wicked was fabulous. I really want to see the show now, even if it is different. I've probably never mentioned to anyone here that I was seriously, seriously obsessed with the Wicked Witch of the West as a child. No, really. I wrote was was probably fanfiction about her for like an entire year. I remember my year one teacher asking me if there was anything else I'd like to write about, anything. Someone knitted me a witch with a green face. I still have her. So that story was like, just... wow, and I'm so glad I finally read it.

vi. I am now reading 'Helen Mirren - In the Frame - My Life in Words and Pictures', which is fabulous. I got it for Christmas but only picked it up properly the other day. I have so far read about her family and childhood and her younger years in the RSC and travelling across Africa and living the Boheme actress lifestyle. God, I'd love to do that - give up all my things and just go and make wonderful art in strange places. I wonder if the world she travelled in still exists at all in the way it did when she explored it. My instinct tells me it doesn't, that the 60s and 70s are gone now and it would be impossible to live the same life now, but then that could just be the stories the media tell and the brainwashing of the capitalist consumer system to make us think that we have work and earn and buy and borrow in order to live.

vii. There are weird white larvae things falling out of our kitchen air conditioning duct. I looked up hornet larvae on google, and found pictures that are disturbingly similar. We have a nest of hornets out the back and their nest is in the wall cavity behind my bedroom. Seriously, if we start getting hornets inside the house, I'm fucking moving out.

I fail so hard at updating my LJ. But here is one now!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas/New Year/everything else, and that you are now enjoying the appearance of Easter Eggs in stores way before they need to be there (mmmm, Cadbury Creme Eggs, although I have to say that my supermarket having eggs now makes Easter less special because I will already have eaten 3645353 of them by the time the day rolls around).

Things that have been happening in the land of Angie:

i. Rita and Kingsley! They have finally got their act together and are enjoying each other's company, which of course makes me all sorts of happy, but at the same time is kind of bittersweet because there's Ollivander too, and Rita seems to have decided to finally grow up and not keep them both.

ii. road_ahead. I'm enjoying playing there - my muggleborn!Ravenclaw Rita is most certainly talking to me now, and also to others. She's writing an article about the war and planning a paper about the history of dark magic and having tea and attending Quidditch games with Sybill Trelawney (and Pomona Sprout, in the latter thread) and generally recovering her equilibrium and having a good time. The game is fantastic, but we need more of the older generation! If anyone is interested in playing an older generation character (game would dearly love a Kingsley Shacklebolt and a Gawain Robards, because they'd have a lot to do in the plot), go take a look. We especially need older generation men, because there are a number of women running around but no men, and it is a bit odd. Right now it feels like more of a younger generation game, but I know there are people out there who enjoy the older characters, and the more of them there are the more opportunities we'd all have to play :). Go look!

iii. quills_pbs I don't know how long this new fad of 'making icons of completely random people' will last, but that is my RP PB icon comm! There are currently only a few sets - Tarja Turunen, Mika, Peter O'Brien, Barbara Streisand - but I find random people intriguing for icons fairly often, so there will be more.

iv. I have been reading a lot since Christmas, when I went out and spent my gift-money on a rather thick pile of books. I think I would like to ramble about them:

( In which Angie rambles about books )

v. I am also working on fic, since I realised what a poor effort I made last year in that department (fic year-end post thingy to be made separately, although there is little point in doing it at all). So hopefully I will have some fic up soon!

Peace out!

Wow. Once again I have failed to update my journal for over a month. And I'm doing so now that I have a print media piece due tomorrow. I'm attempting to write a travel piece about being in Belfast over Easter last year. It's happening, if slowly. Mostly, it's making me pine terribly for being overseas again. I realised the other night that I could actually look up Norwich on googlemaps and view the place on the satellite. I could actually trace the path I walked from uni to village on a daily basis, and see the building that contained my flat.

I have a few weeks left of my degree. Then I start looking for a real job. I really, really want to be back there. In England. Free and having fun and living my life like I did for those 6 months. At this point, though, I haven't got enough money. I guess I'll have to work here for a year or so before I can start looking for wok over there. Get some experience in the industry I want to work in, anyway, rather than being a supermarket checkout chick. I decided against the honours year, because it just looked like far too much effort, and too much of an excuse to avoid change.

In online life, I've joined road_ahead RPG. This time, I'm trying my hand at muggleborn!Ravenclaw Rita, because the concept of playing her muggleborn is fascinating after DH in a way it never was before. I haven't been hugely active yet, because blargh uni, but I'm having fun so far, and I'm loving reading everyone else's stuff. It's been so intense and so sad these past few weeks, because of all the funerals (the Weasleys in this game are absolutely amazing). It's been overwhelming just reading.

wizardwatch has only one week left. Rita has made it right through to the end. I've taken over modding there, too, which is easy enough but time consuming omg.

Rita and Neville have been at it again. In this one, Rita is bored and horny, and Neville has been ill and takes a nap in her bed, and she comes in and just... convinces him to sleep with her. It was very fun and interesting to play, like that - knowing what we wanted but just putting the two of them in the room together and seeing where they took us. Go read, if you are so inclined, and tell me/us what you think. The game has precious few watchers these days and I am a complete whore for reviews ;).

I'm in love with Ill Will Press Little iLLs, and I'm currently bidding on one of the glow in the dark ones. So cool. It's getting really expensive, and the auction ends at 10am tomorrow, so I don't know if I'll get it, but I'm hoping. There's another one I love as well, though, so I won't be heartbroken if I don't win this one.

All of you should go and watch Albus Dumbledore: The Only Gay At Hogwarts - with music from Little Britain. It's absolute brilliance.

Also, since I haven't posted about it: YEY for teh gay. And absolute fail to those fans that I saw going 'suck why couldn't she have made one of the hotter characters gay'. Because yeah. Um. I think it's far more awesome that a generation of kids have realised that one of the most respected characters in their favourite book series preferred men than the fact that you can now write slashy Albus porn with Jo's blessing.

That is all. I'll go back to my travel piece now.

The first week of wizardwatch is nearly over. The housemates are having interesting times and the game is a lot of fun. Go take a look, then venture over to watchwizard and vote someone OUT! As well as giving your favourites points, of course. :)

Hee, oh rp.

i. Omg the hilarity at Stoats right now. Once again, a random thought that the bitchy NPC Mrs Witherbottom should see Rita and Ollivander together, a massive rumour has been started. Rita is apparently pregnant with Ollivander's child, possibly twins and people are squicked, excited and scandalised. Also, after this little interlude, Daphne is apparently rather Confused and Apalled.

Ahh, the hilarity. I can't wait for Rita to find out about the rumour, and then about the Stupid Old Bitch that spread it. She's already feeling rather predatory *restrains muse*.

ii. I have also joined the temporary 13 week RPG, wizardwatch, which is Harry Potter Big Brother. And it needs 4 more characters. draco_crescendo is running it, so stop by her journal or the comm for more info. She's after characters in Harry's year, mostly, except for Rita, who will be there to terrorise everyone. Which will be quite enjoyable. You guys will have to start watching once it starts, and vote someone not Rita out each week!

iii. ( A few thoughts on DH )

iii. I HAVE PHOTOSHOP AGAIN. Several celebratory Miranda icons are being made. I was going to upload them now, but photobucket is having maintenance done. So meh. laters.

iv. And I'm sick of hearing about the LJ crap. I understand, but gah. So sick of it.

OMG GUH. This pairing slays me. Seriously. I've never been much of an OTPer (obviously - what a waste of time only writing/loving one pairing when you're a whore for rarepairs) but I feel all conflicted - Rita/Severus or Rita/Kingsley? (in het. I have no such complications in femslash)

There is just so much angsty (and porny) goodness here. ajsdgwahdsfdgd.

If I do say so myself, anyway *sheepish grin*

Anyway, yes. A Very Rita Apology. In which Rita feels guilty about how she spoke to Kingsley last time they saw each other (link at the beginning of the thread), and wants to make it up to him. In a way that only Rita could possibly consider 'an apology'.

Hope you enjoy :)


I'm also quite in love with Ollivander, and Rita quite likes him too. He's full of information and stories, and c'mon, stories are just like sex. Also, Rita has a chat with Gawain Robards, head of the Auror Department. About her status as an illegal animagus.

Mad fangirling for all these characters' muggles. I love this game so much.

I really need to make a post at Merlin's, though, longer than about three lines, which is all I could manage last night *wibble*. I'm afraid the shiny and new of SHH and getting involved there has quite shoved the characterisations of my ML characters out of my brain. I felt rather bizarre, stepping back inside that Rita last night.

This RP log was written by shh_kingsley and myself as an exploration of our characters, trying to understand the relationship we've created between them in stoatshead_hill. It's backstory, set during the war, and obviously not part of the game, but it was absolutely teremendous fun to play, and I thought some of you might enjoy it. It's very, very NC-17. ;)

Let me take one moment to just fangirl shh_kingsley's muggle a little. She is amazing amazing amazing. The thread was so much fun, and such a challenge. I don't think I've ever felt quite so challenged by an rp before - every one of Kingsley's posts took my breath away, and made me think and work so much to try keep up the level of awesomeness. Also, hot. If you guys find this even half as hot to read as I did to play, well... I would say I thought our work was done, but hell no, there will be more Rita/Kings in game.

Okay, so I should stop now, and let you read it. I hope you enjoy. I stole the cut text from the oh-so-perfect "Rev 22:20" by Puscifier. Obligatory download link here.

I've just discovered it's too long for a single post. SO. Part 1.


Date: 28 June 1998
Characters: Kingsley Shacklebolt, Rita Skeeter
Location: The Swan (muggle pub and inn in London)
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Gratuitous Relationship-building Smut.


( jesus has risen, but it's no surprise; even he would martyr his mama to ride to hell between those thighs )

Hello all!

To let you know, because I seem to be failing at LJ lately (Blech uni, and work with Ramadan just ending and Christmas around the corner), I found the rabbit's home the next day. His name was ginger. He was no trouble at all :).

And now, the purpose of my post. A good ole pimp!


You need to come and join me at the new RPG I've joined, stoatshead_hill. It's post-war, and the premise is that during the war, Voldemort and his Death Eaters destroyed most of the wizarding world's canon locations - The Ministry and Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, etc. The area around Ottery St. Catchpole has been abandoned by muggles, and the wizards of Britain are sloely trickling in. They have to rebuild their world, brick by brick.

Play is due to start in mid-November. The plot is brilliant, and there is a fabulous cast of characters already, but many, many places still open. The mods are especially looking for a Minerva McGonagall or a Moody, and since I have a flist full of Minerva (and maybe Moody) fans, I thought I'd pimp that with the biggest pimp stick I could.

There are plenty of players who've joined who have never RP'd before, so if you're interested, do take a look and don't worry if you're an RP virgin. It's going to be a lot of fun and will be very plotty and not just shippy (though of course, shippiness is allowed). I'll be Rita there. The journal for her character is shh_rita.

Come and join!

stoatshead_hill stoatshead_hill stoatshead_hill stoatshead_hill