What Up? I mean, Changing the Game

[in_the_blue]

(Apologies to all my RNC-friendly LJ friends out there, but I couldn't resist.)

HELLO PEOPLE. For those of you who know me and those of you who don't, here's a quick recap. Call it in_the_blue 101.

I am Spike Spiegel. Grencia Mars Elijah Guo Eckener. Alex Row. James Ford. Vincent Valentine. Howl Pendragon. The Marquis de Carabas. Reno. (outpost_12, aka "my game," milliways_bar). Cool, you say, a list of characters. What does that mean? Hell if I know. But seriously, that's my active list for RP. Sometimes I wonder if there are trends and similarities and sure, they're there between some of the characters. Alex and Vincent are both pretty emo, or make that pretty and emo. Also out for revenge. Spike and the Marquis are rogue loners. Reno and Sawyer are bad guys who look bad being good, or good guys who look good being bad. And Gren and Howl I can't really lump together except for the fact they're both friendly and dedicated to their crafts. I only roleplay characters I have something in common with, though, and it's a little bit of my life's work to figure out what I have in common with all these lovely... uh... men. I've been playing Spike the longest and Alex is my newest. The word on the street is I'm most like Spike of any of them, but I still don't think I'm anywhere near that cool.

I was Sirius Black. Vicious. Mugen. Bill Weasley. Charlie Weasley. Sun-Hwa Kwon. Hero Brown. Willy Silver. (outpost_12, milliways_bar, dogstar_academy, aka "my old game," The Sugar Quill, where I also dabbled in Lucius Malfoy and James Potter). These are my retired ladies and gentlemen. I don't think I'm very good at roleplaying women, by the way, which makes me stop and wonder about myself sometimes. It isn't that I didn't have fun with Hero and Sun. They're great characters, phenomenal characters. I just ran out of steam with Sun (and I mostly blame season 5 of Lost for that) but I have to take responsibility too. I was all gung-ho to play her, and then I couldn't figure out what to do with her. Some of that was discomfort with the fit and some of it was the game. With Hero, her story was told. She had a great run, goddammit, Mamacita. I fell out of love with the way her story ended canonically, but for RP purposes I was really done telling her part of the saga. Mugen was my wild child. He's so smart, but so poorly known and understood. Again, I kind of ran out of steam and there was a lot of misunderstanding about who he was and what he was, and the kinds of things people wanted me to do with him were things I thought would have pushed him out of character, and I don't like playing OOC. Vicious was my sacrificial lamb. I actually played him twice; the first time was at a short-lived Cowboy Bebop RP and the second time was at my game, and I knew he wouldn't last long. Honestly, whenever Spike and Vicious are in the same place a showdown is inevitable. It was really hard playing both of them against one another, but it was a really good exercise in compartmentalized thinking. I miss playing Vicious. He was a lot of fun. Willy Silver was my very first character at Outpost 12, and he was fantastic. Difficult to play, but a great character. I did something with him that I'm not all that crazy about doing, which is run him through canon. I took my time, though; his canon is so short. I played him for three years, which is two years and ten months longer than his canon. I miss his good-natured curiosity and his blank-wall bravado that's not really an act.

Then there are the HP people. Sirius was the first character I ever RPed. I started way back before Order of the Phoenix was written, and boy, did that throw me for a loop. I also played the two oldest Weasley brothers, Bill at Milliways and Charlie at Dogstar, and they were really, really fun. I think I learned everything I know about RP from playing Sirius. I did some of my best stuff with him and also made some of my worst mistakes with him. At the Sugar Quill, when we used to have character days, Sirius always got inundated. Always. It was very different playing him there than it was playing him on a RP board where I was more or less in charge of who got to see him. Lucius was fun at the Quill; I think I had him get drunk with a bunch of girls there and then kick them all out of Malfoy Manor. At the very end I also picked up James, and to my surprise I loved playing him. He was like a breath of fresh air. The HP fandom is also the one place I've written organized fanfiction. I don't write it any more and haven't for a long time, but you can find my stuff in the archives there if you look under author name Lady Narcissa (which ought to be a big hint about why I also RPed Lucius).

The only character I have a journal all ready and made up for but have never used and have no current intention of using is Sephiroth. He has the prettiest profile page and I had so much fun writing it, but I really don't think I'll ever play him. He's crazy, but not in the fun sort of way that characters can be crazy. Shit, the guy thinks he's a god. Even my ego isn't that big.

I am also mom to a gifted 14-year-old. A licensed massage therapist (OR LMT #7824 for the curious). A wife. A cat owner. A homeowner. A writer. A moderately fanatic (*cough*) Cowboy Bebop fan. A beader. A Scorpio, with Gemini rising and moon in Pisces. A pretty lousy housekeeper: I always know where to find things but there's always a degree of disarray at home. I play flute and guitar and a little piano. I like to drive, especially long distances. I have family on the east coast. I was born in New York City, grew up in Connecticut, moved to Massachusetts for college, then moved to Boston where I had a share in season tickets at Fenway Park (my second home). That was back in the days when you could take the train in from the North Shore where I lived and walk up to the ticket office and buy seats for the game five minutes before it started. Oh, those were the days, right? I'm also a Boston Celtics fan. My interest in the Patriots and the Bruins is decidedly inferior to my love for the Red Sox and Celtics. I'm usually pretty private about my private life, and I don't always consider that my online persona matches my real-life one, although I've been informed that it actually does. So what do I know. I'm just the thing on the other end of these fingers.

Politically speaking, I'm a left-wing vegetarian tree-hugging liberal who voted for Obama so very proudly. That stated, you won't find a lot about politics in my journal. It's just not something I tend to open up and discuss, but you're free to know my general leanings. Oh, I also rarely discuss religion. I just... yeah, you don't want to know on that one. What I'm most tolerant of is tolerance, and I'm most intolerant of intolerance. I believe that we all have the right to our opinions and they don't need to be shoved down anyone's throat. I believe we should all agree to disagree with one another about politics and religion (and anything else, really) and not end up fighting about it. I believe that all human beings should be treated with respect and dignity. I like to do my part in little ways to help this planet and its people survive.

And one more thing: I'm a really loyal friend. You have to wrong me six ways to Sunday to get me to be less loyal. I can be pretty selective about my friends. I don't think I'm a snob. I only have time for so much, and I'm relatively self-sufficient, emotionally speaking. I'm generally pretty happy, but I am prone to bouts of distress and moderate depression. Hormones are not really my best friends.

Wow. Maybe I should rename this LJ entry "confessions of a confessaholic."

Comments

[kelleypen.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed reading this very much. My own current fandoms are HP, Jane Austen, and HHornblower. I haven't got HP out of my system yet, but it's lessened quite a bit. I miss reading your characterizations. You really are a master of it.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm always amazed at how long-lasting the HP fandom has been for you and others. For me it lost a lot of charm during Book 5 and I don't think I ever quite recovered from that. I was really surprised I had so much fun with James at the Quill, not that it lasted very long. And that was a different type of roleplay anyway, but I haven't so much as peeked into that fandom in years now. I guess for me done = done.

[ashavah]

I think the same could be said of a lot of people, me included.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

*icon love*

[ashavah]

Haha, one of my friends who used to work at Checkmated made it. I understood the sentiment. ;)

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

ah yes, the good old sugar quill. i never got ausername i beleive unless i actuall ydi dhave a silly one justto keep from makign anonymous reviews. your rp musings keep tempting me to find soem roleplaygn game again but the last time i tried that I tried to follow all those threads at once and jsut gottangled up. {gets lsot in memories of impromptu roleplayign posts on other journals}
and istill maintain yo ucoudl pla yanyone hwose cannon you've read or seen at least once.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

1) Happy birthday tomorrow!

2) Thank you! But I'm actually quite a bit more research-oriented than that. I often decide I might play in a canon after reading or watching just once, but I won't actually do it until I steep myself in it more than that. For my latest, I had to watch the whole series 3x before I gave it a stab. I think that way, I can get the stars out of my eyes that sometimes want to fall in after the first read/viewing, pay attention to the flaws the second time through, and get the details cemented the third time. So the process is a little more painstaking than it might seem on the surface.

[alienchrist.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed doing this. You are awesome. ♥

I think I'll do this later.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked. ♥

[prplhez8.livejournal.com]

Hee! Insight into your mind 101. I loved it, of course, but then again I've always considered myself lucky enough to be the other owner of the fingers of someone who you're typing with, texting with, or sharing email with. It's been such a joy finding out all of these things about you and so much more. I can still remember that first conversation about Charlie....it's been a long time now. What fun we've had. *grins*

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

I always forget that our first conversation was about Charlie. I had fun with him, though, and more power to JKR that she brought so many people together in ways she probably never fathomed when she sat down to write her first Harry Potter book, you know?

xoxoxo

[ashavah]

Late as so often, but now I see the post you were talking about. And it's awesome. Hmm, makes me want to do a little self-reflection myself. Who knows. Or maybe I could go do something productive. :P

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I inspired you to self-reflect! Did you have fun with it?

[ashavah]

I did! And it was long, long overdue self-reflection, so that's even better. ♥ It was great to get all those thoughts down in the one place and remember all the great things going on in te writerly part of my life right now.