(no subject)

This morning I spent 25min standing in my form room with a black coat over my head. It was quite peaceful, actually. I could hear everyone's conversations at once, because I wasn't having to think about seeing things. After a while I could work out where people were from their voices, and then I could see them, indistinctly, as darker shapes.

There are posters outside all the computer rooms. Green posters, with the word 'Banned' in all caps at the top, and a picture of some poor unfortunate who actually got caught MSN'ing (there's MSN on every computer in the school, and people use it all the time, despite it being strictly prohibited), with text claiming she is banned from every computer room, but as she just came in to do some more MSN'ing (and two others are swapping contacts next to me) it wasn't particularly effective. Amusing, though.

Alter Ego is *evil* and horrible and timewastery. I managed to waste over two hours on it this morning (maths was cancelled). So now I'm timewasting with a LJ entry instead (physics also being cancelled, due to the sheer number of people avoiding school due to the announced presence of Sports Day).

Sports Day was postponed to tomorrow because of the rain (health and safety regulations meant we couldn't make people run on the plasticky track because they'd most likely fall over). Which is bad, really, because now I'll have to attempt to get another lift in, and naath will turn up tomorrow to use the computers and no-one will be here. Also, half the lower 6th are off on a Biology Field Trip tomorrow, which means people are still sniffing around for people to compete, whether they have a 'safe' officiating job or not.

I wonder if this entry will be long enough for b_weg to complain about. I hope so. Look, no lj-cut tags!

Yesterday... yesterday was Monday, wasn't it? Probably. I don't think anything particularly interesting happened.

The day I was thinking was yesterday was actually Sunday, during which I went to the beach with the church youthgroup, grazed my knees (which I somehow have avoided doing for aages) and thoroughly annoyed three cats (who were fuzzy, and went absolutely mental when we had barbequed chicken, and had to be chased around when they decided to steal some), one dog (which wasn't too bad, but was rather drooly) and one small child (who could do a very convincing grumpy face).

Ooh, one of the scary 15-year-olds next to me has stolen the first line of this post for their MSN name. Fun.

I'm getting bored with this now, so I guess I may as well post it.

(no subject)

I've started writing Althea again, for no apparent reason. (Well, I restarted the Kestra fanfic, then I decided that it was supremely pointless and just generally not going to turn out any good.) I don't think I can write fantasy though. Especially not fantasy romance. I seem to be doing too much scene-setting and not enough actual story. Then again, given that the two main characters haven't actually met yet, this isn't particularly suprising. But it sounds more like I'm introducing all the characters as if I'm writing RP descriptions for them rather than a coherant story.

The politics side of it all is even more dire than the characterisation, too. So far I appear to have absolutely no grasp of the logistics of quasi-medieval intercontinental trade. I guess I should just put the places closer together, but I do hate it in books when it's somehow impossible to go over a certain mountain range because the author can't be bothered to deal with what's over there, and can't invoke 'magic' because there isn't much if any of that around here. So I tried to make the places I have almost worked out cover enough land to be vaguely sensible, but that just makes trade between them look a bit silly. And I still haven't decided what hair colours my elves are allowed.

The relationship between the elves and the dwarves in the Elven Domain is kinda sketchy, as well. Originally it was going to be backed up by some kind of odd telepathy thing, but it all seems rather unnecessarily complicated. So now it's more to do with economics (the dwarves that live in the Domain are poor, just because they are (self-perpetuating low social class), and the elves are rich, so they have to work for the elves if they want to eat). I'm not sure if I should just drop the whole dwarves-hate-elves thing, though. It'd make more sense if the dwarves in the Dwarven Strongholds hated the aristocracy of the Elven Domain, but an average dwarf just didn't care much. And I have the old elf-king run off to the Dwarvern Strongholds, so presumably he knew they weren't going to slaughter him on sight or anything.

Yay for failing to create vaguely sensible worlds before beginning to write. This is what I get for basing a story off a dream...

(hmm, I wonder if I could do anything with that fairies thing. rather modified, of course - names changed to protect the guilty, and all that. probably it'll be too much hassle to make it hang together.)

(no subject)

As I'm having a 'let's annoy b_weg by posting too much to LJ' hour-or-so, it's probably time for a State of the Characters summery. You probably won't be interested.

Thiealla de Jissaret - a cheap remake on the Cassia theme. Chaotic good, terminally stupid cleric. Thiealla hasn't really had chance to act more than 'slightly meatheaded', though. She's not as ditzy as Cassia, I don't think. Actually uses her Wis score.

Sharra Melior - a slightly less cheap remake on the 'Shari' theme. Older than the usual Shari (they start at about 12 and go up to about 20, I think Sharra's about 27 or so). Neutral evil (i.e. completely selfish) theif. Made especially for the particular game setting.

Lythenir of Longpine - well, I call him 'elf-boy'. Chaotic good elf ranger. Haven't really got a handle on his character yet - so far he's attempting to undo the damage of a rather self-destructive drinking spree, after deciding that the army is not the place for him and getting rid of his previously lawful alignment.

Klorg the Flayer - high-level chaotic neutral dwarf fighter. Intelligence of 3, charisma of 1. Not actually in the game he's been designed for yet. More interesting than Klorg himself (who is, after all, just a pile of loosely associated muscles held together with scraps of dragon scale mail and enchanted weaponary) are his two talking weapons, Kajonnilir the mighty dwarvern battle axe (lawful neutral and most put out by his current ownership) and Fiona the Flaming Sword of the Amazons (chaotic good and also none too pleased about her circumstances).

I was going to go into the non-RPG characters that are floating around in my head atm, but it's lesson time now. Maybe later, if I haven't heard enough screaming by then :).

(no subject)

Yes, it's time for everyone's (least) favourite webcomic, Haylar! Now with added random-critter value, get your copy today!

(Today I have read at least three quasi-communist manifestos and looked at a catalog featuring 'Che shirts' and t-shirts bearing the hammer and sickle. I have also downloaded and semi-played one IF adventure which contains the phrase 'Marxist muse'. All of this is entirely the fault of Alter-Ego (I was looking for somewhere where I could cheat and just read all the vignettes and be told how they affect things, finding instead www.the-underdogs.org), with the possible exception of one of the manifestos, which was the fault of the New York Times article about an insane chatbot coder.)