[tr] SOTP: January 2011
ME
I've been incredibly up and down all month, mostly down, and I lagged a lot because of it. My mom's insistence on turning off the internet every night put a serious damper on things for a while, too, because she does that about four hours before I actually want to sleep and that covers the time when I tag most, and for a while, stealing wireless from a neighbor was more trouble than it was worth and I just didn't want to do anything, but. I have got around that and I think we're okay. I haven't yet finished my first draft and I have a story I need to write for charity in the next couple days, but I just feel so lazy.
VERONICA MARS
Has tentatively agreed to move in with Mathias in the future, although this is dependent on whether or not she decides it's a good idea for Sam. She's also said she's ready to sleep with him. Enormous leaaaaps. But really, for all that Veronica has become more mature this last year or two and for all that she's got more grown up responsibilities (namely Sam, to whom she is fiercely devoted), she's still all of 22 and she still balks at the idea of things like living together and the things it means, not just adulthood but the possibility of betrayal. Like, she doesn't expect that from Mathias and it's not at all a rational link, but there's something about being clear about how much she cares for someone and taking a chance which makes her fear the worst. She's seen too many relationships screwed up - like, every single one around her except the Halperts, and even they got split up for a while, and every one she's ever been in - so moving forward makes her nervous. She might start looking for trouble, picking at problems that don't exist, because she gets antsy at times like this, but it's a step. Or a lot of steps.
EP: No.
HOMEPLOT: None planned at present.
EDEN MCCAIN
Still pretty unhappy about the way things are, but trying to be at peace. She has Claire and that pleases her. Her focus is on that and Gideon for the most part. I very, very badly want to make new friends for her. Sometimes I lag with her and consider how I have so little to do, but it's very rare that I think of actually dropping her, because I love this character and I feel like she has a story left to tell that I'm not getting to because I haven't had the chance, so I want to change that. Claire's EP and talking to Laine this month sort of woke up my ideas on that front, so the goal is just to try and get her out among people more. It's difficult because she's very warm, very friendly, she likes people, but she doesn't always connect? She can be very empathetic and when she is, she clicks and she stays with someone, wants to look out for them (like with Effy), but that doesn't happen all that often. There are just so many things in her I still want to explore.
So the point is, please, please, throw everyone you have at her until someone sticks. She's fantastic and I want to play her more, so if you have someone you wouldn't mind threading with her, let me know? I should try and EP her this month.
EP: I intend to try, possibly late in February.
HOMEPLOT: Potentially a Heroes homeplot with Claire.
MEREDITH GREY
First, Nix, I know I owe you a post. I keep getting sidetracked and I apologize; I've been extra-scattered these last couple weeks. I'll get on that this afternoon and if I don't, you have license to beat me.
Second, godddd, what. I need a second to try and remember everything. Man, everything's all tangled up. Sometimes it gets me down, because there are moments where she's just terribly defeated and part of me pushes back against that because I tell myself that isn't Meredith Grey, except that it is. The thing I loved about her was never that she survives everything all la de da, it's that she gets to this place where she wants to let go and she still keeps going. She gets worn down, burnt out and she still makes it through. She knows she should talk to Sean about all kinds of things, but she keeps sticking to the worn path because, frankly, she doesn't want to hear it, because she recovered from the Maeve debacle for about two seconds and then rewrote everything in her head, because she pretty much still thinks that, whatever Sean thinks he thinks or feels, she's still second-best here, since she put herself out on a limb after her timeloop and got nothing. At the same time, she doesn't hold that against him, knows it's not his intent, so she has trouble trying to… I don't know, correct it? Address it? Because she saw what happens when she tries and she's not doing it again.
By mid-month, though, she was doing okay because she had so much to distract her and things seemed to be getting somewhat better at last, until she and Sean got stuck on the spaceship during space plot. She was hurt, for those who know her, but just by a long shallow gash to the back of her left leg - messy, not deep enough to do serious damage, but still painful for a while. Sean, however, was pretty badly hurt, so of course she blames herself for that, at least in part.
EP: She should be getting an EP in the next week or two.
HOMEPLOT: Ridiculously over-sized epic adventure in the Marvel universe. I'd consider another Grey's one if anyone else wanted, but we'd want to start planning now. I'm also not sure when the Marvel one is, since, for closure reasons, it needs to be set pre-Black Widow's arrival, so we might need to bump it up to March. Either way, we have a plan and it is excellent and we are taking full advantage of the fact that it can last longer inside the dream than a couple days and I am excited.
EMMA FROST
I never know what to do with Emma, guys, which sometimes makes me think I should drop her because what am I doing. I have this amazing, iconic character and she is just. not. doing anything. So I feel like I'm failing her on that front and there are times I forget I want to play her, and then I read old threads and I tag her around and I love her so much, you guys, I don't want to give her up. So I feel like I need to think of something to do with her - an item at the least, since she's been on the island a little over a year now and is due one. I just need to decide what. Suggestions are welcome because I know I had one in mind when I brought her and then completely forgot it. (Unrelated thought: oh man, Shane, if/when you bring Sophie-Anne, can they be best frenemies? I would say they'll either adore each other or each plot the other's downfall, but I think it might be both.)
I also want her to keep collecting teenagers in a manner infinitely less sketch than that sounds. So excited she's taking freaking Miranda under her wing, BEST IDEA EVER.
EP: Possibly? Probably not. We'll see.
HOMEPLOT: None planned at present. I would kind of like to send her on a Marvel homeplot, but I don't know if something's being planned.
BRITTA PERRY
JUMANJI PLOT. This was fantastic, oh god, and I'm having so much fun playing it out still. I enjoy trying to find the line between action/drama and comedy and it's fun to put someone like Britta in a situation like this. Other than that, I need to backdate her getting her NDPD gift, which is, I think, I have to check, I wrote it down, a male goat (because there are loads of girl goats and only, like, two boy ones? And I want her to have to take care of a living creature and the idea of her being stared by one when she wakes is too great to handle). She should probably name him something like Pierce.
I want her to get to know more people, too, so there is a goal. She does not readily endear herself to most people and she's sort of okay with that, except when she isn't, but she also really hates that Jeff is one of the only people she has in her life because she hates giving him that kind of importance, possibly because the island didn't accomplish that on its own.
EP: Maybe.
HOMEPLOT: We want to do a Community homeplot! I don't know what that would entail yet and it certainly won't involve grand adventures, etc., but it should be fun and ridiculous and there will be classes and everything. Tracey and I are hoping for people to come along and/or NPC other characters like the Dean or the rest of the study group. Britta doesn't have that many friends, but there's Kate, if she wants to come along, and surely anyone from Jumanji group is close enough to count.
OLIVE PENDERGHAST
EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURTS
You guys, this was the best decision. I cheated, I apped her before I finished my draft, I'm awful, I shouldn't have, but this was a fantastic idea. I was just so down in the dumps and the only person louder than her was Meredith and Meredith has a buttload of plot planned but it's mostly intense and dramatic and I thought, well, I need someone who's loud with no plans and who will get the vast majority of her being upset out of the way in the first week and then just adapt and be fun all the time, in a lighter sense than Mere's drama is, because when it's one of the Bad Days, I cannot handle just Meredith and I can't wrap my head around anyone else. I need Olive. I need a pup who keeps me happy. I need someone fresh who allows me to branch out to other characters I haven't played with yet. And I wanted a teenager. Mostly, though, I just love this girl so, so, so much. I've had her four days, she's had eleven threads, nine of which are still in progress, all of which make me completely goddamn giddy. Everything she does delights me. I'm so glad I caved and sent in the app, because she has done wonders for my mood.
I had no idea she was going to go over so well either, but I love everything so far. Her thread with Chris and Cassie is already one of the greatest things I have done in this game (she was assigned to Chris' hut where he's squatting, so she'll wind up taking one further south instead, but this is, I believe, the beginning of a beautiful and highly confused friendship), I am thrilled to be threading with Columbus, and oh man, I had no idea she'd hit it off with so many girls. I almost didn't realize there were so many teenage girls, and Olive isn't prone to having a wide circle of friends, but already there's Miranda and Jessica and Claire and she actually really likes all of them. (Cassie confuses her a lot, but that's partly that in the haze of WHAT IS HAPPENING it's all sort of endearing, because Olive is a soft touch.) And I was lucky Laine consented to let me debut with Eduardo, because she lets me get away with ridiculously long tags in ridiculously long threads which makes me so happy always (although let us be honest, almost everyone is getting long tags at some point, Olive talks/narrates a lot). Plus: reboot Spidey and Gwen, I make myself laugh foreverrrr. She's already very fond of him, because she badly needed a little kindness when she arrived, and now there are all these great people and everything is, if not magic, a super-high-tech science she knows nothing of and it's fascinating, so she really, really misses home and her family, but she's also sort of enthralled by it all. What I love about Olive is her willingness to throw herself headlong into whatever comes her way. One of the things anyway. It makes the transition easier and it also, I think, will keep her fresh as her stay on the island goes on, because she's not easily bored. She finds things to do with herself. She's a prime candidate for all kinds of trouble. For now, though, I have nothing planned.
EP: YES. Probably Friday or Saturday, and I hope EVERYONE will tag. EVERYONE.
HOMEPLOT: Until I just got here, I hadn't even considered the possibility of sending Olive home. (Also, you know, it occurs to me, unrelatedly, that if you can have a dream that feels like several days or weeks but is only two days, you can also have one that feels like they've only gone home for an hour or three. But I digress.) Anyway, I don't think I'll do that because she's so new. The only plot impact it could have would be to make her miss home and her family that much more and that doesn't help. She's probably going to Harvard with Eduardo and Miranda (and Mark?) in the second homeplot, though.
THE FUTURE
SHUT. IT. DOWN.
I'm staying at six until I've finished this draft. After that, we'll see.
I've been incredibly up and down all month, mostly down, and I lagged a lot because of it. My mom's insistence on turning off the internet every night put a serious damper on things for a while, too, because she does that about four hours before I actually want to sleep and that covers the time when I tag most, and for a while, stealing wireless from a neighbor was more trouble than it was worth and I just didn't want to do anything, but. I have got around that and I think we're okay. I haven't yet finished my first draft and I have a story I need to write for charity in the next couple days, but I just feel so lazy.
VERONICA MARS
Has tentatively agreed to move in with Mathias in the future, although this is dependent on whether or not she decides it's a good idea for Sam. She's also said she's ready to sleep with him. Enormous leaaaaps. But really, for all that Veronica has become more mature this last year or two and for all that she's got more grown up responsibilities (namely Sam, to whom she is fiercely devoted), she's still all of 22 and she still balks at the idea of things like living together and the things it means, not just adulthood but the possibility of betrayal. Like, she doesn't expect that from Mathias and it's not at all a rational link, but there's something about being clear about how much she cares for someone and taking a chance which makes her fear the worst. She's seen too many relationships screwed up - like, every single one around her except the Halperts, and even they got split up for a while, and every one she's ever been in - so moving forward makes her nervous. She might start looking for trouble, picking at problems that don't exist, because she gets antsy at times like this, but it's a step. Or a lot of steps.
EP: No.
HOMEPLOT: None planned at present.
EDEN MCCAIN
Still pretty unhappy about the way things are, but trying to be at peace. She has Claire and that pleases her. Her focus is on that and Gideon for the most part. I very, very badly want to make new friends for her. Sometimes I lag with her and consider how I have so little to do, but it's very rare that I think of actually dropping her, because I love this character and I feel like she has a story left to tell that I'm not getting to because I haven't had the chance, so I want to change that. Claire's EP and talking to Laine this month sort of woke up my ideas on that front, so the goal is just to try and get her out among people more. It's difficult because she's very warm, very friendly, she likes people, but she doesn't always connect? She can be very empathetic and when she is, she clicks and she stays with someone, wants to look out for them (like with Effy), but that doesn't happen all that often. There are just so many things in her I still want to explore.
So the point is, please, please, throw everyone you have at her until someone sticks. She's fantastic and I want to play her more, so if you have someone you wouldn't mind threading with her, let me know? I should try and EP her this month.
EP: I intend to try, possibly late in February.
HOMEPLOT: Potentially a Heroes homeplot with Claire.
MEREDITH GREY
First, Nix, I know I owe you a post. I keep getting sidetracked and I apologize; I've been extra-scattered these last couple weeks. I'll get on that this afternoon and if I don't, you have license to beat me.
Second, godddd, what. I need a second to try and remember everything. Man, everything's all tangled up. Sometimes it gets me down, because there are moments where she's just terribly defeated and part of me pushes back against that because I tell myself that isn't Meredith Grey, except that it is. The thing I loved about her was never that she survives everything all la de da, it's that she gets to this place where she wants to let go and she still keeps going. She gets worn down, burnt out and she still makes it through. She knows she should talk to Sean about all kinds of things, but she keeps sticking to the worn path because, frankly, she doesn't want to hear it, because she recovered from the Maeve debacle for about two seconds and then rewrote everything in her head, because she pretty much still thinks that, whatever Sean thinks he thinks or feels, she's still second-best here, since she put herself out on a limb after her timeloop and got nothing. At the same time, she doesn't hold that against him, knows it's not his intent, so she has trouble trying to… I don't know, correct it? Address it? Because she saw what happens when she tries and she's not doing it again.
By mid-month, though, she was doing okay because she had so much to distract her and things seemed to be getting somewhat better at last, until she and Sean got stuck on the spaceship during space plot. She was hurt, for those who know her, but just by a long shallow gash to the back of her left leg - messy, not deep enough to do serious damage, but still painful for a while. Sean, however, was pretty badly hurt, so of course she blames herself for that, at least in part.
EP: She should be getting an EP in the next week or two.
HOMEPLOT: Ridiculously over-sized epic adventure in the Marvel universe. I'd consider another Grey's one if anyone else wanted, but we'd want to start planning now. I'm also not sure when the Marvel one is, since, for closure reasons, it needs to be set pre-Black Widow's arrival, so we might need to bump it up to March. Either way, we have a plan and it is excellent and we are taking full advantage of the fact that it can last longer inside the dream than a couple days and I am excited.
EMMA FROST
I never know what to do with Emma, guys, which sometimes makes me think I should drop her because what am I doing. I have this amazing, iconic character and she is just. not. doing anything. So I feel like I'm failing her on that front and there are times I forget I want to play her, and then I read old threads and I tag her around and I love her so much, you guys, I don't want to give her up. So I feel like I need to think of something to do with her - an item at the least, since she's been on the island a little over a year now and is due one. I just need to decide what. Suggestions are welcome because I know I had one in mind when I brought her and then completely forgot it. (Unrelated thought: oh man, Shane, if/when you bring Sophie-Anne, can they be best frenemies? I would say they'll either adore each other or each plot the other's downfall, but I think it might be both.)
I also want her to keep collecting teenagers in a manner infinitely less sketch than that sounds. So excited she's taking freaking Miranda under her wing, BEST IDEA EVER.
EP: Possibly? Probably not. We'll see.
HOMEPLOT: None planned at present. I would kind of like to send her on a Marvel homeplot, but I don't know if something's being planned.
BRITTA PERRY
JUMANJI PLOT. This was fantastic, oh god, and I'm having so much fun playing it out still. I enjoy trying to find the line between action/drama and comedy and it's fun to put someone like Britta in a situation like this. Other than that, I need to backdate her getting her NDPD gift, which is, I think, I have to check, I wrote it down, a male goat (because there are loads of girl goats and only, like, two boy ones? And I want her to have to take care of a living creature and the idea of her being stared by one when she wakes is too great to handle). She should probably name him something like Pierce.
I want her to get to know more people, too, so there is a goal. She does not readily endear herself to most people and she's sort of okay with that, except when she isn't, but she also really hates that Jeff is one of the only people she has in her life because she hates giving him that kind of importance, possibly because the island didn't accomplish that on its own.
EP: Maybe.
HOMEPLOT: We want to do a Community homeplot! I don't know what that would entail yet and it certainly won't involve grand adventures, etc., but it should be fun and ridiculous and there will be classes and everything. Tracey and I are hoping for people to come along and/or NPC other characters like the Dean or the rest of the study group. Britta doesn't have that many friends, but there's Kate, if she wants to come along, and surely anyone from Jumanji group is close enough to count.
OLIVE PENDERGHAST
EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURTS
You guys, this was the best decision. I cheated, I apped her before I finished my draft, I'm awful, I shouldn't have, but this was a fantastic idea. I was just so down in the dumps and the only person louder than her was Meredith and Meredith has a buttload of plot planned but it's mostly intense and dramatic and I thought, well, I need someone who's loud with no plans and who will get the vast majority of her being upset out of the way in the first week and then just adapt and be fun all the time, in a lighter sense than Mere's drama is, because when it's one of the Bad Days, I cannot handle just Meredith and I can't wrap my head around anyone else. I need Olive. I need a pup who keeps me happy. I need someone fresh who allows me to branch out to other characters I haven't played with yet. And I wanted a teenager. Mostly, though, I just love this girl so, so, so much. I've had her four days, she's had eleven threads, nine of which are still in progress, all of which make me completely goddamn giddy. Everything she does delights me. I'm so glad I caved and sent in the app, because she has done wonders for my mood.
I had no idea she was going to go over so well either, but I love everything so far. Her thread with Chris and Cassie is already one of the greatest things I have done in this game (she was assigned to Chris' hut where he's squatting, so she'll wind up taking one further south instead, but this is, I believe, the beginning of a beautiful and highly confused friendship), I am thrilled to be threading with Columbus, and oh man, I had no idea she'd hit it off with so many girls. I almost didn't realize there were so many teenage girls, and Olive isn't prone to having a wide circle of friends, but already there's Miranda and Jessica and Claire and she actually really likes all of them. (Cassie confuses her a lot, but that's partly that in the haze of WHAT IS HAPPENING it's all sort of endearing, because Olive is a soft touch.) And I was lucky Laine consented to let me debut with Eduardo, because she lets me get away with ridiculously long tags in ridiculously long threads which makes me so happy always (although let us be honest, almost everyone is getting long tags at some point, Olive talks/narrates a lot). Plus: reboot Spidey and Gwen, I make myself laugh foreverrrr. She's already very fond of him, because she badly needed a little kindness when she arrived, and now there are all these great people and everything is, if not magic, a super-high-tech science she knows nothing of and it's fascinating, so she really, really misses home and her family, but she's also sort of enthralled by it all. What I love about Olive is her willingness to throw herself headlong into whatever comes her way. One of the things anyway. It makes the transition easier and it also, I think, will keep her fresh as her stay on the island goes on, because she's not easily bored. She finds things to do with herself. She's a prime candidate for all kinds of trouble. For now, though, I have nothing planned.
EP: YES. Probably Friday or Saturday, and I hope EVERYONE will tag. EVERYONE.
HOMEPLOT: Until I just got here, I hadn't even considered the possibility of sending Olive home. (Also, you know, it occurs to me, unrelatedly, that if you can have a dream that feels like several days or weeks but is only two days, you can also have one that feels like they've only gone home for an hour or three. But I digress.) Anyway, I don't think I'll do that because she's so new. The only plot impact it could have would be to make her miss home and her family that much more and that doesn't help. She's probably going to Harvard with Eduardo and Miranda (and Mark?) in the second homeplot, though.
THE FUTURE
SHUT. IT. DOWN.
I'm staying at six until I've finished this draft. After that, we'll see.