Ayshela

Ever been completely paralyzed by the conflicting urges to hug and throttle someone? Ever gone back and found things you'd written months ago that you remembered not the first thing about? And really liked it? Ever cleaned out Lucifer's tank so God could take up residence? Ever been so completely exhausted that your hair hurt? Ever wished you were stranded on an island solely because if you were completely alone you'd finally be able to sleep? Ever been on one phone while holding two others and calling back and forth between the two you're holding to test them so you could report to the person on the OTHER phone?

have you ever stuttered utter gibberish as seven completely different thoughts tried to jam their way out of your mouth at the same time?

(mumbled apologies for resurrecting the thread... for the newer folks - this thread is where i post stuff originally written in e-mail, journal, or response to someone posted somewhere else, which i've been requested to post here.) a worried glance, on flutterby wings, trails vainly in your wake as you stop, look back, and shoot it dead with a sigh. I can only smile and wave until you're gone. Then "breathe" is all that I have left to say. All words have been deflected by assurance - the inexorably impervious shell of the invincible or the immortal. You hope you are. I fear you're not. And still as parents do I let you go, watching you shed words and worries unheard and unheeded. The door is closed, now. You've been long due back but care does not bridge distance. Now, as I pace I wonder - If you can't hear me, am I really here?

ping? *refills the hugbin*

mouse

yoiks! that makes a rather endless loop, doesn't it? try clicking on the link above - "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" - it'll take you to the main index from ANY page, portal included. Which you probably already realized, since you got here to post this.

heartbreak

just a quick explanation on one point which comes up again and again - and NOT guild related, for a wonder... The reason there are "several places to post the same thing" is actually quite simple. The public rooms are available to anyone who trips by - of necessity and by design. They are available to new members to post in, available to unregistered lurkers to read (for how else would they know if they even want to register, much less apply?), and available to any search engine and archive mechanism out there. Not everyone wants every creative work they post, or every discussion which touches on personally tender topics to be so visible. Rather than restrict their ability to contribute to the boards, or restrict their ability to post as they felt the need to, a "safer" place to post such material was created. There is one for conversational topics which should not be accessible to anyone who trips across the site, and one for creative writing projects of any sort which also should not be randomly tripped across. Also, there is the Writer's Workshop, where those who have an idea or a partially complete project can post it for comment and critique of a very specific and direct nature, post revisions, and repeat the process until they are happy with the completed project - which will then be posted in the appropriate public room. While this process *could* be done in the public rooms, as feedback and critique does happen there, it's of a totally different nature. What happens in the public rooms is more like a passing comment by a friend reading over your shoulder. What happens in the Workshop is more like having your prof red-pencil your paper and send it back for revision. To suit the needs of the membership, we need all of these - and they all exist by request of the membership. Does it make it confusing to find something? sometimes. If it's not something a search would be useful for, and you're just trying to remember where "reading material" type posts are, the *format* is really not that difficult if we break it down a bit... +place for conversation (Cabaret) +place for stories (Assembly) +place for poetry (Banquet) +place for roleplay stories (Conservatory) +place for archives (Library) +place for applications (Recruiters) +place for multilingual stories (Manor of tongues) (Walls of the Pen with various stuff) +place for member-viewable conversation ( Courtyard) +++place for member-viewable stories/poetry/songs/essays (Oak tree subforum) The breakdown is pretty easy, once you understand why they're there. Is it publicly viewable? Is is membership viewable? Is it completed? Is it still being worked on? Since each of these was put in by request, and the membership-viewable distinction was made on a basis of personal safety, I don't think either of those are things we can simply blend into the main public spaces. Could they be placed somewhere else, or handled differently? Maybe, I don't know. But I don't think those are spaces we can simply discard, even though they add an element of confusion in finding things.

I've been mostly lurking myself, for ages... doing stuff behind the scenes/through PM and otherwise just dashing through to make sure things weren't exploding around anyone. Well, until my computer threw a temper tantrum and required rebuilding *twice* due to successive hardware failures. (I put on my steel-toed boots and threatened to kick it back into its senses, and it seems to be behaving again.) My apologies for my disappearance, seeming or actual. Soon as I find the overgrown patch of velcro I stuck in the courtyard, y'all will know right where to find me. What do I want from the Pen? What I've always wanted from the Pen, and what I've always found here. The Pen has always been the safest place to bring anything I wanted to share, to share with people I knew would accept both writing AND author, where it would be safe to openly say what I thought, what I felt, what I believed. I never had an open place, before, where I really *could* just say what I really thought, much less what I really felt. Pulling up a barstool in the Cabaret, posting a poem or story, or a more private Real Life story under the Oak Tree - I can do that here. I found my voice here, and a place where I could safely speak my mind and heart. I want the Pen to be that. I want that safe place to find your voice and speak your heart to be here - for me, for the current members, and for people who haven't yet found their way here. Beyond that? I want people to relax a little bit. Have some fun in the Cabaret. TALK with each other. Want more feedback? Filling out your profile is a necessary and appreciated first step, but talking with people outside of the story/poem threads is a good - if not necessary - second step. I've left feedback for people I've never exchanged words with before - and will again - but not comfortably. Those I feel I know a bit better, whose reactions I'm more familiar with, are more likely to get more extensive feedback because I know more what they're looking for and how they respond to different approaches. Converse. Interact. Relative to that, I really MISS the conversation-generating threads in the Cabaret. It seems lately so much focus has been on "We're a writing board" that anything which doesn't relate directly to writing or the board progress of the membership is off-limits, including many general conversation threads which would have well served the purpose of bringing this group of separate writers closer together as a group. Maybe it's time we rethink that? We're writers, yes. That's why we're here - for most of us, yes. Must we be ONLY writers to fit in here? Must that be ONLY what we're about? Can't we be people developing friendly relationships as writers? I think several of the previously mentioned "wish list" items would be accomplished, were this the case. The structure of the Pen - there's room for adjustment, I agree. Personally, I always LIKED the structured approach of generally visible rooms, accessing newer areas with each promotion. Breaking up the visibility not only added to the security of more administrative level conversations, but it decreased the confusion of stumbling into this new space with specific areas for specific things and trying to figure it all out. I know I wasn't the first one to post something in the wrong place, nor was I the last, but it was easier to settle in with fewer spaces to figure out right out of the gate. Meh. There's probably lots more I wanted to say, but anything else will wait. The greatest thing I want from the Pen, though: That the safe, warm, and welcoming space I first fell into still be here, safe and warm and welcoming to those who follow(ed).

Ayshela blinked a few times and looked down. "Just... miss? The ground is a bit difficult to miss." She wandered away a bit, pondering the "advice" while looking for Kaitlyn. A sudden flash of movement caught her attention and she barely dodged Gwaihir as he fell! Unfortunately, while she missed Gwai, she caught a root squarely and was falling headlong toward the ground when she heard Kaitlyn calling her. Ayshela was so intent on trying to figure out where Kaitlyn was calling from that she didn't realize for several seconds that she was hovering a good foot and a half from the ground, yet, having forgotten to fall the rest of the distance. She looked at the ground in surprise, and was about to start falling again when Kaitlyn giggled from the vicinity of the tree branches overhead. Gently, carefully rolling to the side, Ayshela looked up to see an impish face floating two feet above her. Kaitlyn somersaulted gleefully through the air, calling "come on, it's fun!!!" Ayshela firmly put aside all thoughts of falling and floated up to Kaitlyn, hoping to learn more from her about how to fly. She called her thanks back to CheerMynx as they sailed overhead, waving merrily to those who had yet to try.

Cat paced up and down the room, choosing her words with more care than she'd used since the divorce. "I don't smoke, and never have. Many of my friends do, though, and some of their families. I've seen people quit, and I've seen people try to quit. Those who "couldn't quit" have always had one of two fatal weaknesses is their attempts: either they found an added benefit to smoking they didn't meet another way, like that being the only way they got an uninterrupted break at work, or they were convinced they wouldn't be able to. Neither of those factors is the responsibility of the tobacco companies. The image of smoking being good for you, or a part of social gatherings, that's been around for centuries and was accepted before the tobacco companies existed. They used it, but they didn't create it. "It seems to me that the question is, did they do what they were responsible to do to prevent people being harmed by their product? They have warning labels, and have made those labels more explicit and emphatic over the years. They can't be judged for not having labels before they were required to, any more than any other business can be. The existing tobacco companies can't be told that to be responsible they have to go out of business and let someone else take over and fill the market demand. They create a product because there is a market for it. Saying they create the market removes from every one of us our own ability to choose what we will and won't do and says we only do what they tell us to, or make us do. I don't think that's right. "While I don't think they're innocent, I don't think they're legally guilty." OOC: vote for defense - not innocent does not necessarily mean guilty

totally brain fried right now. trying to get a post through my waterlogged brain isn't working. will put in a vote post and try to get the RP post edited in tonight.

hmmm... interesting. I know I'd be rearranging several, there, and balancing a couple. Will have to think about this. I'm assuming, here, that you want the "pecking order" as each of us views it, whether it includes these or other categories? Or do you want the types you've listed arranged as each of us would prioritize them?

and that, my friend, is the finest compliment! =)

Cat sat back with an inaudible sigh, trying not to attract attention as she stretched a bit to ease her aching neck and shoulders. Bad enough to have to sleep in a horrible bed in a cramped room off where she couldn't even stop by to see the kids, but listening to the testimony drone on and on had nearly put her to sleep. This was all slowly becoming insane. They'd done little but repeat the same things that had been known for years, as if everyone was too stupid to have known or understood the risks. No one had even touched on why people ever started smoking to begin with, and how they thought the tobacco companies had been behind that. At least the judge would insist on consideration of "innocent until proven guilty" in deliberations. Though, from the looks the other jurors were giving each other, they weren't likely to get that consideration themselves. Especially from the most cynical among them, she realized, sighing to herself again. Great, just when she thought she'd gotten away from judgement and condemnation. No such luck. OOC: vote for Mynx

guild

*Ayshela pounces each promotee in turn, congratulating each heartily* Rah! Congratulations! Well deserved, and I even get to be the first to pounce you! =) Aren't you lucky? *giggle* (Evangeline - answer in PM.)

Ayshela catches Gyr in the Courtyard and pounces him, huggling him thoroughly, but inadvertently diverting Kaitlyn's 'flying tacklehug' trajectory so that she pounces Darryl instead and rolls across the grass with him in a small bundle of yips and gleeful squeals. "Happy Birthday!" she says, as they go to separate the two. "We should probably rescue Darryl, or there might not be enough left to help you enjoy your cake, which is awaiting you in the Birthday Room. But meanwhile, I wanted you to have this." She gives him a small book with apparently empty pages. "It's an inspiration journal. When you're too busy to write down the ideas and would otherwise lose them, this journal will capture them and create a picture on the page of whatever the idea was. If it doesn't translate well to pictures, you'll probably get a jumble of words or phrases, but either way it should help you remember when you have time to write it out later." As they untangle the bundle of smallish bodies, Soli comes out for a breath of air. "Oh good! Just the OTHER person I wanted to see today!" Ayshela laughs. She gives Soli a hug and a smallish parcel, which turns out to be a stack of blank parchment. "It will always remain the same, no matter how many pages you use up. Your very own bit of Eleshondra's Endless Stack of Parchment. Happy Birthday!" OOC: A very happy birthday to you both! =) *huge hugs*

OOC - Out Of Character - the "real person talking" part of a role play post. Which is where the person behind the character says - congrats and welcome! =) IC - In Character... Ayshela pounced srsizzy and huggled him gleefully. "Welcome aboard!" she said, setting him back on his feet before Kaitlyn dragged her off to the Conservatory for her flying lessons.

you're floating in a banana? why? (because it has appeal?) (*grooooan*) Welcome back! *huggles*

block

Cat sat back, watching and listening and biting her tongue as life had taught was safest. Parts of the video had been interesting, but other parts just made her worry about her kids again, and then she'd missed several moments of taped testimony. The "deliberations" were no better, constant bickering which explained nothing, confused everything, and gave her a horrendous headache. Cat rubbed her temples and opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it and simply sighed and sat back again. Anything she said would just set off another round of shouting, and that would probably make her head explode - though that might be one way to be sent home so she could get her kids. OOC: the dice call for Peterson/Giles Jordan.

thank you for posting the deadline. last week completely exploded around me, leaving me desperately behind on *everything*. sorry.

sweeeet, thanks for posting these! If anyone decides to convert this one to a story for the Assembly Room, this could be inserted appropriately at that point. =) *huggles*

(title fixed) =)