We put a ballerina in a tree, and she turned into a wood nymph

I enjoyed doing the photo shoot with Gigi so much that I felt the need to do another one!

Yesterday niobien* was kind enough to allow me to dress her up and mess up her hair and send her up into trees so I could take pictures of her. katiescarlett29* served as my lovely assistant helping me figure out shots. The genesis of this one was that I had these two unusual dresses that I thrifted a while back, the ballerina-like pixie dress and a hundred percent silk empire-waisted gown in shades of green and brown. They are quite pretty, and I've never had a chance to do anything with them. At the same time, I've always loved the way Carolyn looks. She is petite with a dancer's body, a sweet face, and a gorgeous fall of wavy hair. It occurred to me that as she's close to my size, she would be able to wear the interesting things I've bought myself at thrift stores. The fact that she has a background in ballet-- she even was nice enough to come to class with me once --gave me the idea to put her in the pixie dress. Once I decided that we'd do the shoot outside, taking advantage of Carolyn's tree-climbing skills, I thought the brown and green silk dress would both suit her and fit into the environment.

Carolyn is a wonderful model. I knew she'd be fun to work with because of her expressive physicality-- it was what allowed her to bring such life and humor to the pantomime character Audrey in Merely Players. But she is also just a wellspring of ideas for poses, kind of dreamily flowing from one into the next, always finding some way to work herself into her environment in an interesting way. I gave her some suggestions for shots I wanted to see, but mostly everything we captured was her idea, with Steph moving around helping to spot good angles from which to take the picture.

Here's one of my favorite shots, completely unedited. Would you look at how beautiful this girl is?

We went to the area around the chapels on Brandeis campus because it's so pretty. The idea behind the shoot was not as cohesive as the one for Gigi's. I saw her as a sort of fairy-spirit-creature who incorporated the elegant composition of ballet into a more wild natural setting. Steph suggested we call this character "Daphne," which I think fits. I like the strong contrast between those two elements, and the contrast between the more structured, precise poses of Carolyn in the ballet dress and the more freeform poses of Carolyn in the silk dress. It really took advantage of Carolyn's look and physicality-- she could climb the trees, she could do the ballet positions, and she could do them both at the same time! The look of the silk dress and its accompanying style probably worked a little better, but I am happy with everything. Here's a nice one of her in the ballet dress:

With the brown and green dress we also got to include another neat little detail that I think added a lot. I like to save little bits of material from other things and incorporate them into later projects. It can be fun to tell the story of where those pieces came from when showing off the final product. For this other costume, we braided two green ribbons into Carolyn's hair for kind of a wild, messy look. One of those green ribbons was around a box of fancy nuts that morethings5* once so sweetly brought as a host gift to a dinner party I had (which impressed my parents mightily!) The other was a table favor from the wedding of Kerri and Andrew, whose wedding colors were green and brown.

So I'm really happy with this project. I will clean up the pictures a little and post the best ones here and on Facebook. I will be doing more of these in the future, I think, and I would definitely love to shoot Carolyn again sometime.

What I'm working on right now

In an effort to refocus myself on the projects that are important to me, I thought I'd give a rundown of, if not ALL the projects I have in the works, the ones that currently in the forefront of my mind.

The Tailor of Riddling Way, in two forms. There is of course the original audio drama form, but lately I have been working more on the film version that I am making for my Screenwriting grad school class. The story is translating pretty nicely, even working better in some ways because I can show in a visual medium rather than tell everything, and my teacher has given me both positive feedback and very useful constructive criticism. I haven't been posting my film script pieces here because they're not completely different from the audio drama stuff I've already showed you, but when I finish it I think I will post it here in its entirety. It's kind of cool to think that by the end of the next month I will have finished an entire screenplay, even if only the first draft.

I'm also working on my fantasy novel idea, Fallen. I've had this idea since senior year of high school to tell the story of a demon found and raised by a Catholic organization to fight on their side against the forces of hell while struggling to cope with what seems to be the inherent evil in his nature. I've been working on scenes here and there to submit to my Science Fiction and Fantasy study. What I've done has been posted here if you'd care to read it.

Those are the major ones I need to focus on. But there's some other stuff that I've been thinking about lately too.

I would like the first full-length play I write to be Mrs. Hawking. This piece is set in the Victorian era and about a sort of female Sherlock Holmes whose withdrawal from the world and growing distrust for humanity seems to be getting in the way of her good work until she is forced by her well-meaning nephew to take on a young lady housekeeper, Mary Stone, who turns out to be the companion she's been lacking. I love mysteries, I love that period setting, and I love the dynamic between the embittered middle-aged lady and the young woman whose perseverance through her hard luck begins to draw Mrs. Hawking out of her shell. And perhaps it's naughty of me to cast already, but it helps that I am totally imagining crearespero* as Mrs. Hawking and nennivian* as Mary. <3 There are a couple of scenes from this piece posted here.

There's also my short humorous larp idea, Break a Leg. My fourth (FOURTH!) metatheatrical piece to date, this humorous two-hour larp will have eight players as members of a dysfunctional theater troupe whose leading lady has been found suddenly dead two hours before the curtain is supposed to go up. I have already bid it for SLAW in November and Intercon in March, but I am planning on finishing it way before then. It's small enough that I could probably get several runs in beforehand. It will involve an interactive environment and sides for in-game performance opportunities... which I will have to write. :-)

Those are the majors ones. There's other things I plan on working on eventually, and though they are not currently at my mind's forefront, sometimes I noodle on them as well. Imperium, my Ancient Roman larp. Sundan, my Shakespearean-style epic tragedy about a man who destroys himself and everyone around him when the woman he loves marries another man. And a possible project for the next semester of school that is percolating in the dark recesses of my mind...

But these are the ones you can expect to see more of in the near future.

My new routine

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis writes very eloquently on the damning situation of being trapped between doing neither what you SHOULD do nor what you WANT to do and therefore wasting your life in a rut of doing nothing. As is so often the case, Jack manages to explicate the matter very clearly for me, as lately I find myself in this situation quite a bit.

As I mentioned recently, I have been having a real problem with focus these days. When it comes to doing work, particularly for school, I've been encountering an amazing amount of difficulty buckling down to a task and getting anything substantial done. Long periods of time that I mean to use for work often just drift into space-out time where nothing meaningful is accomplished. Because I feel guilty for not getting my work done, I feel like it's unjustified for me to spend that time doing something I'd actually like to do instead, so I end up losing all that time to pretty much doing nothing. I'm not sure what's the cause of it-- tiredness, frustration, something else entirely? --but I hate what it's doing to me. It's a point of pride that I've never missed a deadline in my life, but I never used to be a procrastinator, and I'm pretty sure all that rushing at the last minute is pushing down the quality of my work.

So I am going to put myself on a new schedule. I am a creature of habit in the extreme, so when I get into a habit I tend to stick with it pretty closely. My work hours did in fact get pushed back by one hour, so I'd better make the best of it. Now is as good a time as any  to build a new routine.

I'm going to keep getting up at seven like I have been. And I'm going to get a workout in as soon as I get up. At least a half hour of activity. That will give me enough time to get cleaned up before work. It will also get the workout thing out of the way early, so I won't have it hanging over me for the rest of the day.

I will bring lunch with me to work. That way I won't go crazy with hunger or fill up on junk. I'll either prepare this the night before or leave enough time to stop at the grocery store before work. This will also eliminate the need to figure this out after work, which will delay eating further and keep me from moving into the next thing.

I will spend two or three hours of every afternoon working on homework. I will mark this time on my schedule so that my calendar reminds me. If I work for a relatively short period like that every day of the week, I will not have to focus for too long at a stretch and the frequency will keep the work getting done.

I will also schedule time to make dinner more often. My being so busy and unfocused on top of it has kept me from doing this. Consequently I'm not eating very well, nor have I enjoyed one of my favorite hobbies in a pretty long time. Making an effort to shop for groceries for the week instead of randomly when I need something (a longstanding bad habit of mine) will help this, I imagine. I think I will take some time one day out of the week to plan meals and buy supplies will make me much more efficient in this.

Well. That's going to be a pretty big shift from the haphazard, rushing way I've been carrying on lately. But it's really not working for me, I miss my more organized, focused life. So I think I need a radical shift to knock me out of this rut.

If Screwtape drags my ass to hell, it sure isn't going to be for wasting my life on TV Tropes.

Costumes for Sherlock Holmes!

Yesterday I got to try on costumes at Sherlock Holmes rehearsal. I was so excited, guys. I am the leading lady in a Victorian show, one who is supposed to look very lovely, which puts me in the enviable position of getting to wear many fun Victorian-era gowns. I tried on several last night, made of drapery silk in red and gold and navy and green, including a gorgeous ivory wedding gown that was my favorite of the lot. At the moment they don't fit very well, but the costumer is a seamstress of some ability and is confident she'll be able to take them in such that they'll look nice. She also tried some things on my castmates, including a very slick gentleman outfit on our Moriarty. I am a sucker for men in Victorian suits, and I must say he wore it well. :-) The costumer also suggested that they will be curling my hair in ringlets, which I've never had before. I wonder how I'll look with them! I've kind of always wished I had wavier hair, so I hope they take. A week from today we'll be taking publicity photos, and I don't know if they'll be in costume or not, but in any case I hope they turn out. I'm always very insecure about how I look in photos. This show spends a lot of time talking about how beautiful Irene is, and I've been joking quite a bit about how I hope the audience agrees. A decent photo or two might help, right? ;-)

The Esmeralda Series

So as you may remember, I did a photoshoot involving polaris_xx* as my lovely model and in_water_writ* as brilliant costumer and stylist. Though I don't currently have access to the software I want to really edit these photos, it's about time I posted them in at least rough form so you could take a look at them.

Gigi is playing Esmeralda, a society lady with a secret. Can you see what it is?

So maybe it's not that secret. ;-)

A leaf at the mercy of winds greater than me

Grumble, grumble. It's looking likely that my hours at work are going to be moved back. Currently I get in at eight in the morning and leave at one, which has been convenient to my early-bird tendencies. By one o'clock I'm usually so hungry I can't think straight anyway, so it makes for a good stopping point. I also like having the entirety of the afternoon left open for homework, because the later in the day it gets, the harder it becomes for me to get any mental work done. But now I'm going to be working from 9AM to 2PM, which if given a choice I would not want to change to.

*Sigh* It's just one hour, so I guess it's not that big a deal. But I don't get a lunch break because I'm there for such a short period, so I'm either going to have to start bringing lunch in with me or else wait another hour, which with the way my metabolism seems to work would be very unpleasant. It will probably take me a while to really get into the habit of planning ahead for that, because I haven't had to so far.

Maybe I can take advantage of this. Maybe I'll keep getting up at seven like I have been and just use that extra time to get a daily workout in. In the past I've been best able to stick to a frequent workout routine when I got up early and did it before work. So I guess I could make this work for me. Still, it disrupts my current routine. Of course nobody consulted me, but this is my job, it's not supposed to be set up for my conveniences. I am a leaf at the mercy of winds greater than me. I should just be grateful I have a job that lets me work the part-time I need to be conducive to my academic responsibilities but still manages to be decent.

From FALLEN - Father confessor

This is another piece of Fallen that I wrote for school. It builds upon this piece, where Julien offers to hear Gabriel's confessions in hopes of helping ease his burden. But he learns that Gabriel's burden is greater than he'd ever guessed, and he has no idea how he's going to find the way to help him.

~~~

In a few months Julien had another appointment in the rectory besides the office hours he kept. Sundays were long, busy days for the pastor of St. Michael’s, but even this far into the evening his work wasn’t yet done. Instead he came here for his standing engagement late on Sunday nights.

Julien took his place inside the confessional and waited. It was appropriate to allow the suggestion of anonymity with the divider between them, but this particular penitent never entered through the door as the priest did. Often Julien never saw him at all. Instead he preferred to climb his way down from the ceiling and take his place behind that opaque screen to make his weekly reconciliation.

Quiet and closed-off as he was at most times, the priest found him to be shockingly frank and straightforward in the confessional. It was as if his guilt made it almost a compulsion, one that made him crave the structure of the sacrament. Julien did his best to accommodate this in what ways he could, offering all the strict formalities that Gabriel seemed accustomed to.

When he was sure of the creature’s arrival, he cleared his throat to begin. “Good evening, my son.”

“Good evening, Father.” It was always remarkable to hear him speak from the other side of the screen. Gabriel had a fine voice; that never ceased to strike him. But for some indefinable, alien quality, he could have been confessing a human.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Gabriel went on. “It’s been seven days since my last confession.” It was always seven days; Gabriel came to him once a week, every week, with strict reliability. They had established a routine, the two of them; it was always here, and it was always now.

It had been some time in coming, this arrangement. Julien found he had a great deal to learn about his new penitent before he could minister to him. Cortes already knew him, Gabriel had said. Julien had been resistant to the notion on the grounds that the confessor himself was to be the conduit, not the source, of Christ’s forgiveness. Often the penitent took comfort from the particular priest they spoke to, and of course some were better at counseling than others. But there was no such bond there— instead it was that Cortes had been familiar with Gabriel’s history, had seen the falls and the shadows and the questions that everyone had asked all his life. It was not that Cortes had particular empathy for him. It was that Gabriel would not have to speak of shames that were already understood.

It was all of those things that Julien had to learn. The violence in him, or the potential for it, was terrible, it seemed, and the very idea of it welling up from him left many in frank terror. The incidents of real harm were thankfully few, and not since he’d been quite young, but still they served to prove that when that violence was roused, it was terrible to behold. The Ministers did their best to direct it toward the fight against hell, but the danger always lurked that he might lose himself to it, and if it happened, no one would be able to control him. Gabriel’s own awareness of it was razor-keen, and it did not require Julien’s insight to see how deeply the knowledge cut him.

As for the impression the came from the demon, slowly but surely he was learning to interpret them. They did not come as simple flashes of truth as they frequently did with normal people; instead he had to reach through the thick heaviness that constantly enveloped him. After just a few months at St. Michael’s, Julien was coming to know that feeling very well. It came sheeting off Goran with the fury of rain in a downpour, while in Gabriel’s soul it hung like a heavy, pervasive fog. It had taken some time and study, but he had come to understand that Gabriel’s may have looked different, but it meant the same thing.

Still, at these times he did his best to shut off his perceptions that way. While some things simply came to him, he preferred not to probe in the confessional. It was more right, in such a vulnerable position, to take only what they offered of their own free will. Gabriel in particular he wanted to allow to speak his mind.

And Gariel spoke. “It happened again.”

Julien chose his words carefully. “The… the violent thoughts?”

“Killing thoughts.”

“That is serious.”

“It’s what I am.”

Julien sighed. “Who this time?”

“Amalia Van Doren.”

“Why?”

“She was afraid.”

“I… I’m sorry?”

“She’s terrified of me.”

“That— that isn’t very fair of you—”

Gabriel’s voice grew hard. “She’s never said a word to me. Not in my life. I hate her.”

“She is weak and doesn’t know. You must learn to forgive—”

“I hate her because she’s right!”

“Child—”

“You don’t know what it does. Her pupils dilate. Her heart starts pounding. I can… I can smell it on her. It… it wakes the urge.”

“Child—”

The edge of outrage flattened from his voice, and he sank back into that familiar self-loathing. “I am the monster she thinks I am.”

Julien raked his hair back with his fingers. “Is it growing worse?”

“It’s always like this.”

“I’m sorry,” Julien sighed. “But, child… you have not done it.”

“What?”

“You never hurt Amalia, for all that you wanted to.”

“No,” he concede, his voice almost a growl. “But I would have. If I’d stayed there a little longer.”

“Gabriel, the world is full of things we’re tempted to do.”

“Not like this.”

“When you are overcoming that temptation, you are doing God’s word. What more can any of us do?”

“Most people don’t have this… this thing inside them.”

“What inside them, child?”

“You know, Father.”

“Tell me.” He had to make Gabriel say it.

“The… need for it.”

“There’s violence in everyone. Man is a predator, too.”

“Not like this!” he cried again, snarled it, fiercely enough to make Julien freeze. “Predators are hungry, Father! This is not hunger! I just want to…”

He trailed off, and Julien could hear his teeth gnash, a habit he had often when he was frustrated. Frustrated, or trying to control himself.

The priest swallowed hard. “You haven’t done what you want to do.”

“But I have. Braden still has the scars.”

“You were a child then!”

“Everyone still remembers! If I’d been a dog, they would have put me down.”

“A dog wouldn’t have been able to stop himself.”

Gabriel said nothing, and Julien heaved a sigh, listening to the leathery rustle of his wings. There would be no more discussion through this moment of malaise. They would have to pick this up when Gabriel unburied himself. There was no reaching him now. “Pray with me now.”

He complied, his voice low and tired-sounding. “Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Lamb of God; you take away the sins of the world... Through the grace of the Holy Spirit restore me to friendship with your Father, cleanse me from every stain of sin in the blood you shed for me, and raise me to new life for the glory of your name.”

“Amen,” said Julien. He assigned Gabriel his usual penance, some Bible verses to study and the appropriate passages in the catechesis, with a handful of chores around the grounds that felt spectacularly inadequate to calming a murderous rage. He made the sign of the cross before himself in the air. “The Lord has remembered his mercy, and you are forgiven. Go forth and sin no more.”

“Thank you. Amen.” He heard the deep breath flow through that cavernous chest, hissing through his fangs and growling through his throat. “I wanted to kill you too, Father.”

The young priest’s eyes went wide.

“When I watched you in the rectory. You were afraid of me then, too.”

Before Julien could decide how to respond, he heard the demon climb out of the confessional and begin making his way up the wall. He sat there, listening to the scrape of claws on wood and stone and struggling to think of something to say. Finally he threw open the door and leaped out to catch Gabriel before he disappeared, craning his head back to search the rafters for a glimpse. But it was no use. Julien still had nothing, and he was already gone.

The priest exhaled heavily and pressed his forehead against the dark cool wood of the doorway to the confessional. The sacrament was meant to cleanse and release the penitent, but not so for Gabriel. Despite his best intentions, Julien could not seem to puzzle out what he needed, this tangled tortured spirit, this Gordian knot of a creature. There was no peace to be found in that soul.

Julien collapsed back onto his seat in the confessional. He bowed his head and begged, the heartfelt prayer of a man who knew only heartfelt prayer.

I want to help him, but I don’t know how. Show me the way, Lord, and I will do it.

Festival 2012 Con Report, part II

Saturday night was Folding the River, the newest game from powerhouse writing team wired_lizard* and mllelaurel*. I am at the point where I'll sign up for a game based on who wrote it more than anything else, so I jumped on this. It took place in a world rebuilt after basically a cataclysm on a strange new source of power. I was playing a scientist who had discovered some secret projects going on and I was trying to get to the bottom of them. Though I enjoyed the game a lot, I was expecting to absolutely adore it, so I was ever-so-slightly disappointed, and I feel like I was considerably less awesome a presence than I usually work to be. It is a gorgeously written game with great characters and a lot going on, I was just thrown by the fact that there is so much fictional science that I had to understand. It was hard for me to keep it all in my head, and when a phenomenon happened around me I was never sure if I was interpreting it right. I feel like it kept me from unraveling my plot as far as I would have liked; I'm sorry I made so little progress. That said, I had lots of good interactions, particularly with Greg Lohman, Micah Hollis-Symynkywicz, Mike Hyde, and morethings5*. Definitely would recommended this to people who are interested in complex science fiction games.

Sunday was Paranoia: Research and Dismemberment, our crazy silly dystopian game set in the tabletop universe of the same name. Basically you buy into the concept and you go nuts, which is definitely what happened in this game. There actually is a fair bit of structure and plot for those who want to pursue it, but it's also a great big silly sandbox for those who just want to indulge in Paranoia-style craziness. I think this group tended more toward playing in that sandbox, which is great, as I think most players found that very fun. I played the Vending Machine who is distraught to the point of histrionics over being abandoned by a certain clone who she thought she HAD SOMETHING with. That NPC has gotten more and more over-the-top every time I've played her, and this time we had the hilarious twist ending of when it had seemed that the cruel clone who'd left her also clumsily triggered her destruction in an explosion, a kinder clone put her in the body of the warbot, after which she and the warbot body's former owner ran away together to kill all humans. It was a lovely high note to go out on.

Dead Dog this year was great, a buffet-style affair at Margarita's on Moody Street. My compliments to Shannon for arranging it. She did a wonderful job and I'm so impressed with how she handled everything. This Festival has yet again lived up to my exalting it to the status of one of the most important weekends of my year. Next year lightgamer* will be helming the ship, and I offered to be GM Liaison. I know that now my brain is absolutely buzzing with larp, so I hope to bring something new to delight all my lovely fellows. Thanks to everyone for the wonderful experience!

Festival 2012 Con Report, part I

Oh, beloved Festival.

Friday night was Jesriah, the new game from morethings5*, lightgamer*, and ninja_report*. I was not alone in regarding it as the most anticipated game of the con, and friends, it did not disappoint. I loved my character, a former pop diva who had been committed to the asylum against her will by her shady politician husband and felt completely used-up by the ripe old age of thirty-three. What was interesting was how I expected my game to be one thing from my sheet, and then a curve ball in the beginning turned it ninety degrees, adding a new and challenging dimension. There was a ton of things to do and explore, between the plots I had to pursue, the fascinating other characters I had to interact with, and the elaborate environment of the hospital around us. The atmosphere the GMs generated was great, a little creepy, a little sad, a little tense, like something was hanging over all of us. Despite it being set in the same universe as the earlier game, The Prince Comes of Age, it was remarkably different sort of game with a very different feel that still managed to incorporate cool throwbacks for players who'd played both. I had a great mystery to unravel, which is one of my favorite sort of larp plots, and I'm only sorry I didn't manage to dig up more. There was a long clue chain, and while I did get a fair bit along the way there was a ton more still left to dig up. I was also lucky to have a fantastic group of larpers to play with, which always makes a game better. If you want something dark, atmospheric, and psychologically thrilling, this is a great choice; I highly recommend it.

The next morning on Saturday I ran my third solo game The Stand. This was going to be interesting because I had a lot of relatively inexperienced people in this run. niobien* and Daniel Burns have played about five and Prentice a bit more than that, while this was katiescarlett29*'s third and the first for Sara Brande and Samantha LeVangie. I am very invested in bringing more people into the community, so I wanted very much for them to have a good time. But fortunately I think this is one of the best runs we've ever had. I think plots were more fully explored in this run than ever, even some that got off to slow starts. I just need to make sure that certain character connections get made so they can share their information and start working together, and it also helped that I spoke to a couple of the savvier players (usernamenumber* in particular) to let them know they may need to let their own secrets out. I also have to thank morethings5* for AGMing, even with everything else he had going on. He had this great idea to incorporate the Bear Man from the new True Grit movie (which the whole GM team are fans of) as this wandering figure out on the map who, while being an interesting weird encounter, also proved a way to inject information into the game about things that happened outside of town. I am writing the Bear Man in as a permanent NPC and codifying the things he knows so as to allow him to help the game keep moving. So I am really happy with this run. Thank you, awesome players who were awesome, especially you newbies who all did so well!

The afternoon was tightly scheduled for SLEEP LIKE DEAD time. And oh, Jesus, am I glad that I slept like dead.

To be continued in part 2!

Final to do list before Festival

All that remains before I can lose my brain to larp:

- Get cash to give to Shannon for dead dog
- Buy edible contribution to con suite
- Prepare edible contribution to con suite
- Shower so as to render myself inoffensive to other con goers
- Lay out my costumes
- Make up the couches and spare mattress for crashers

Just twenty minutes till I can get started.

On the eve of Larpocalypse

Last day before Festival of the Larps 2012: Larpocalypse! I am mostly ready to go, just have a few more things to get in order before tomorrow. One or two more things to assemble for The Stand, costume pieces to lay out, crash space to make up for our larper guests. I am ridiculously excited. I think both of my characters are going to be fantastic to play, and both of our games are going to be fantastic to run. This is the biggest Festival in its history, with over a hundred and fifty people signed up, a decent number of whom were friends I invited over the last several years who are now either real parts of the larp community or well on their way to becoming so. I am so proud of our little con for how it's grown and how successful it's become. Big props to our fabulous chair ninja_report* and her awesome staff including natbudin*, in_water_writ*, twilighttremolo*, and lightgamer*. Way to make it happen, guys.

Tonight is also when Jared and I are going to see Lenny's directing project, her HTP-sponsored production of Cymbeline. Sadly it's real performances are over Festival weekend, so instead of missing it we are going to the final dress rehearsal so we get to enjoy their work. It has some very talented actor friends in it who I am excited to see. They've had to deal with a lot of disadvantages, such as a terrible performance space, but they've worked really hard, and Lenny is an extremely talented director. So after I take care of as many last-minute pre-Festival errands as I can this afternoon, it will be off to an evening of theater just before I disappear into the roleplaying haze.

The Larpocalypse is nigh!

Bah, ribcage!

I am a person of petite dimensions, and of the good fortune to be proportionately built in practically all measures. It makes buying clothes a lot easier, as the retail clothing industry tends to assume there is kind of one general figure and makes each successful size just larger in all dimensions according to those proportions. But time and again, I am confounded by my one feature that is decidedly OUT of proportion with the rest of me, the one that just happens to be my least favorite physical feature, my monstrous blocky ribcage.

A while ago I was reading an article about retail dress sizes that included the measurements they generally conform to for various fitting points. Despite the fact that real people are rarely "standard" shapes, there are a certain confluence of measurements that are expected to coincide in people that dictates their size. For example, for a woman of a given height, she is predicted to have a bust of so many inches, a waist of so many inches, so on and so forth, and that's how they determine the dimensions of a size. For mine, let's call it size X, because what number they actually put on the size is all over the place depending on the manufacturer-- it tends to get considered everything from a double-zero to a four. My height, hips, bust, waist, and shoulders were almost exactly right for size X. My band size? Almost three inches LARGER than the measure predicted. In many systems that three SIZES above where the rest of me falls.

Of course I didn't need a numerical breakdown to tell me that. I don't know how many beautiful things have fit me everywhere except for the uncomfortable binding over my ribs. It's a curse modeling samples, because it's the one part that doesn't conform. The only upside is that it's not usually super-visible in how well it fits me, it just feels really uncomfortable. It sucks being restricted in a place that's supposed to expand even farther out when you breathe. And it's not a matter of weight or anything, this is the shape of my skeleton, so there's nothing I can do to change it.

Look at this. I love this dress and it looks great on me in most ways, but still, when I sit a certain way you can see how the material is pushed on by my monstrous ribcage trying to punch its way out.

Ugh. My stupid ribs are one of the reasons I want to stay so thin. They're so oversized that they blend into a wider waistline and make me look blocky. They're not even freaking EVEN, the left side comes out farther than the right, made worse by the fact that my hernia surgery on the right side seems to have included the complete removal of the patch of muscle immediately below the ribs.

They are easily my coarsest, most unfortunate, least liked feature. And I especially hate it when it makes me feel like a cow when I try on pretty things that fit nicely everywhere else.

7 Topics Meme - Self-Control

Given to me by rigel* for the 7 Topics Meme:

- Self-analysis through theater
- Religion
- Performance in LARPing
- Dressing for fuller-figured women
- Self-control
- Cooking
- Generosity

Now I'm going to talk about self-control. I tend to see self-control as a positive, necessary thing. It can require a lot of discipline to accomplish and is often required to doing the right thing. But I try not to think of it so much as "Stop yourself from doing the bad things you're naturally inclined to do," and more about "Make yourself do the good things you know you should but are hard for some reason."

Sometimes for me it is about the first one. I have a pretty bad temper these days. I didn't always, it just developed over the last few years or so due I think to having a greater amount of struggle and frustration in my life than I ever had before. But it makes me act like a real ass, so I should be doing my damnedest to see that when I feel it boiling over, I make sure my behavior is controlled. I really dislike when people behave badly for failing to impose proper control on their impulses. We are thinking, reasoning creatures; emotions are powerful and significant, worth taking into consideration, but they should not rule us.

To a certain extent, I think any instance of doing the right thing when it's hard is a matter of self-control. I don't think it's all right to fail to do the right thing just because it conflicts with your personal desires. You must control your baser instincts when you wish to avoid responsibility that is yours, to tell lies that are convenient to you, to violate bonds and promises that no longer match up with your personal wishes. These are bigger things that just "don't eat too many cookies" and "don't buy that blouse you don't need."

On another matter of "making yourself do the good things you know you should but are hard for some reason," lately I find myself confronted with a bizarre lack of mental discipline. In the last month, I have been having an increasingly hard time buckling down to focus on my work. I want to do these things, I want to complete my meaningful work, but I have a hell of a time MAKING MYSELF DO IT. It's a point of pride for me that I've never missed a deadline in my life, but I used to not be all that much of a procrastinator and this most recent submission cycle I procrastinated like whoa. This can't go on, it's compromising the quality of what I produce. I must control my laziness and inability to focus in the services of accomplishing the things I want to accomplish. And that's the real advantage of having self-control.

From FALLEN - Confession with the new priest

This is part of what I wrote for my most recent science fiction and fantasy submission. This is another part of Fallen, this time from the point of view of a young priest named Father Julien Alencon. He is French and gifted with a power he calls "insight," the ability to receive flashes of truth about the natures of people around him. He was chosen to replace the last chaplain at the school of St. Michael's because of his record and his power. This is the beginning of his relationship with Gabriel.

~~~

As the professors held office hours, so did Julien too, working quietly on something or other at a small desk in the rectory until someone would come into to see him. Members of the community could come speak to him there, attending to school business, receiving spiritual counseling, or taking a moment in the confessional for those seeking the delivery of the sacrament. But then, just a few days into this habit, he noticed it again.

It was the presence, the strange tangled presence unlike any he’d ever encountered before. It was Gabriel, unmistakably, and he realized with a start that if he was feeling it now it meant Gabriel was here, somewhere close by but completely unseen. More thrown than he would ever have guessed, he sat stiffly in his chair trying to decide what to do, until after a while the presence receded, and Julien felt he was alone again. He allowed himself a futile glance around the empty hall, casting about for some action to take, and finding none. This went on for quite a few days, the onset of that creeping sensation seizing him up with a fear so base it startled him. He would just keep on with whatever business he was about, assiduously pretending he did not feel like some scurrying prey animal that could sense the eyes of the predator upon him.

That feeling disgusted him. This was not why he was brought here, to cower away from the phenomenon they had enlisted his help to understand. He could not keep avoiding that which he was meant to confront. He had a duty to uphold.

On the fifth day, when he could sense the creature’s approach, Julien laid down his pen and took a deep breath, slowly in and out. He considered a moment, then asked the room at large, “Gabriel? Is that you?”

The silence in response was long enough that Julien began to wonder if he was mistaken, but finally he was answered by that same low, even voice.

“Yes, Father.”

Suddenly he felt profoundly unsure of himself, the fear threatening to freeze him up again. He cleared his throat and clumsily he pressed on. “You know, you’re very welcome to come in. If you’d like.”

The invitation sounded silly even to his ears. Gabriel already was in, for all he knew. He could be anywhere, and the little mouse he was watching would never know it.

Up in the rafters there was a flapping sound, like the whipping of leather. Julien’s gaze snapped to the ceiling. There Gabriel was, emerging from the shadowed high corner of the hall. On all fours he climbed across the broad beam and sprang off on coiled-steel hind legs. With the spreading of his batlike wings he dropped in a controlled fall to touch down gracefully on the floor just to the side of the desk. It took all Julien’s self-possession not to go lurching out of his chair.

Instead, he folded his hands and looked all the way seven feet up to meet Gabriel’s eyes. He did his best to give a pleasant smile. “That’s better, I think.”

The draconian head nodded, once. The slitted golden eyes fixed on him again, as intensely as they had at their first meeting, then turned down to linger on the floor. That small thing softened him somehow, made him seem to Julien suddenly like a shy boy looking at his shoelaces.

Encouraged, Julien went on. “I am glad you came. We haven’t seen one another since our meeting, have we?”

The demon made no answer. The priest struggled to fill the silence. “Is there something I can do for you?”

It seemed at first that Gabriel may not answer again. Finally he said, “I used to come here to make confession.”

“Confession?” Julien’s guts went cold. “Qu’est ce-que— do you, ah… have you something in particular? To confess?” His eyes went to the curved claws, the long muzzle of wicked fangs, and immediately his imagination began to fire. He fought to keep his expression under control; he could not let fear make up his mind for him.

Gabriel’s eyes began to wander around the room, looking anywhere except at the priest. “I used to come every week. Before Father Cortes became too sick.”

That surprised Julien. That was a habit he associated with the little old ladies back in Marseilles. “Ah. I see. Well, I am happy to hear you anytime you wish.”

Again Gabriel had no answer.

“Is… it that all right?”

His face had so little expression it was hard to read, and Julien had not yet learned to parse out what his insight absorbed from this creature. But on impulse he decided to try anyway, casting out and focusing as closely as he could. He could not trace the strands of the tangle, but amid the swirling threads there was an air of something that radiated unmistakably of sorrow. Julien held on to that, that which he could understand, that which could build connection between one soul and another. He knew nothing of demons, but if he knew nothing else, he knew how to reach out to those who were in pain.

“Gabriel? Is something wrong?”

“No, sir. It’s only…” Those golden eyes flicked back briefly, then again away. “Father Cortes knew me already.”

It was an odd thing to say. Julien had not been hearing confession long, but it seemed off somehow, that such a thing should concern him. The sacrament of confession was not to be delivered from a position of personal investment, at least not as far as the confessor was concerned. But he did not want to alienate him now, not when the connection was beginning to form.

The priest leaned back in his chair and spread his hands. “Well, then… perhaps I should too.”

Gabriel actually looked at him then, not like a predator for once, almost the way a normal person would, and nodded. He turned abruptly to the wall and seemed ready to scale it to leave the way he came in, but then he paused, and his sinuous neck turned back over his shoulder.

“He knew what I am, I mean. My history. All of it.”

Julien stood. “I can learn.”

Those long fangs ground against each other. “So I’ll have to talk about it.”

Notes from the weekend

This Easter my mom gave me her slow cooker to take back up with me. She bought it years ago and barely used it; she found most of her recipes came out better in the oven or stove stop so she didn't bother with it. But she thought that with my busy life I might be able to make use of it, so up with me it came. This weekend I decided to try it out and made a boeuf bourginnone, a recipe I make frequently. It wasn't bad, but I didn't have enough time to let it cook for the full five hours it was supposed to take, so it wasn't quite as tender as it should have been. On the stovetop I've made it in three or so, but on days when I can't watch the pot (and can time my presence in the kitchen just right) this could be of use.

Bernie also hosted an Avengers movie marathon leading up to the release of the new movie. Jane was kind enough to organize a group trip to the midnight opening in May, so this was to refresh its predecessors in our minds. I had to come in and out because of other obligations, but it was fun to watch and spend time with the fun people who were present. I hope they all forgive me for my catcalling directed at Chrises Evans and Hemsworth. Avengers apparently has pretty much uniformly good reviews, so I'm very excited. Unfortunately I have to go to rehearsal beforehand, but I'll get out in plenty of time to meet up with everyone a little later, well in advance of showtime.

I learned Singer is holding a sewing machine sale right now. Go here if you'd like to take a look. I am very tempted to purchase that two hundred dollar serger they're offering. That seems a little cheap for a serger, so maybe it's not all that good, and I should practice my regular sewing skills before I worry about how I finish my seams, but still... I kinda want one. I still have two more weeks to think about it, so maybe this would be worth dipping into my savings.

This is the last week before Festival of the Larps and I'm in pretty good shape. Paranoia is packed, thanks to Bernie, Matt, Mac, and Tegan, and The Stand is close to it. I have all my sheets and my costumes are in order. I just need to finish reading all the materials and I am going to be good to go. This promises to be an awesome weekend, and I'm excited to throw myself in. Thanks to our lovely con chair ninja_report* for putting it all together! Great work, dear!

Interview for theater company professional apprenticeship program

Today I have an interview for something called a Professional Apprenticeship Program at a Boston theater group called Company One. It's a supposed to be for learning about the workings of and gaining contacts in the professional theater world, and I applied in playwrighting and directing. I sent them a sample of my work and today they want to talk to me.

I'm not sure it's going to work out even if I do get picked. It says in the information that it's nine weeks long and entails about twenty-five hours of work a week. That is... daunting, to say the least, with the schedule I currently have. Right now my job is already twenty-five hours a week, set up that way so I have enough time to do my schoolwork. Sometimes as it is I have a hard time getting everything done. And even if I could manage that much extra work on top of everything else, I'd be afraid the stress would kill me. I have no idea how heavy the workload for this program would really be, or where I'd have to be in order to do it, so maybe it wouldn't be as intense as I imagine. But there would certainly be a chance that I wouldn't have time for anything else, including seeing loved ones. Nine weeks of that might be unbearable. Especially since I have no clue how helpful it might actually be to my progress towards getting to put on plays.

So I'm pretty pessimistic about the thought of this working out. I need to do something to move my career forward, but I'm not sure this is going work. Still, I'll go and see what's what. Got to at least try things, because you never know.

A cavalcade of dresses

So I have learned that this Festival my costuming will consist entirely of eveningwear! I am super-pleased about this, finally, finally some of my secondhand gowns will see the light of day. But I might decide which among them will get to take advantage of this rare opportunity. For Jesriah, I'm currently looking at these three options:

 

This is the first-ever thrift store gown I ever bought, encouraged by nennivian* and katiescarlett29* in a move that inspired an addiction that continues to this day. I love this gown; the shape is flattering and deep blue is one of my best colors. I'm also fond of the ripply, asymmetrical hem and the wrap bustline. The glitziness of it would work well for a retro diva look, though I'm not sure the color suggests the '30s era all that well.

Another option is this glitzy black dress. It has a similar silhouette and hem to the blue one above, but this has a halter back and a rouched bodice. The shape is not quite as flattering, however; it's slightly stretched out, and there isn't any support in the bust. Because the fit isn't as good, it makes me look a little blockier. Maybe I should sew some bra cups in it sometime to make it fit a little better.

 

 

This dress actually was not rescued from a thrift store. It is new, but I didn't buy it. This one I found when I was cleaning out the green room after Titus wrapped. It was in a shopping bag that still had the receipt in it, shoved between the sewing table and that ugly yellow couch. I checked with everyone around and nobody recognized it, so I decided to take it home. I feel bad for the person who lost it, but the date on the receipt was from over a month before, so whoever it was, they must have thought it was long gone. Plus there was a red bra in the bag with it. They clearly intended to wear with them together because it was exactly the same color, but with the dress's racer back the bra's straps would have been exposed, so obviously the original owner had no taste. ;-) It's from Kim Kardashian's line and the material is extremely cheap, but the color's nice and it fits me like a glove with cool retro shaping. The only real problem is that the hem is so narrow that you have to take mincing little steps while wearing it. I have long strides for as short as I am, so that takes some getting used to.

And of course there's a chance the green Atonement dress might come in before this Friday, which makes it a viable option as well. Though it's a little more society lady than diva. Does anyone have an opinions or preferences?