measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Character relations and stress... I'm about an inch from quitting [nanowrimo]. My efforts have frustrated me, and here it is the 18th of November, and I'm just at 25,000 words. Since I need to be done by the morning of the 27th when I leave for my mom, I don't see myself being able to finish on time. I'll give it until Friday, but I'm getting so exhausted and irritated with what I've written, that I really am not sure whether I want to bother with it anymore. Dad popped on me this morning that I need to pay my own way for my Christmas ticket. *sigh* I guess I won't be getting all of my bills caught up this check, since it needs to go on my debt card. I'm going to call through my workplace and see if they can find a decent deal for me. If not, I'll go through the online discount places and cross my fingers. The cheapest ticket Dad found was $400 and change. I can do it, but it'll wipe out a lot of my bill money for this paycheck, and I can't put it on my next paycheck, since rent's due. Ah, the joys of money. *sigh* So much for getting my holiday shopping done somewhat early. I'll be waiting until the 15th of December, I suppose. [bar] [erich] and I saw Harry Potter on Friday night. I liked it. It wasn't amazingly better than the first movie, as reviews led me to believe. I'd consider it on par with the first one. The acting seemed quite a bit better in this one, but I can attribute that to age and experience for the three kids. It's amazing how much they've grown up in the past year! Quite fun-- the movie moves very quickly, despite its length. The only thing I could say is that those with spider fears will have some trouble for a while in the movie, but if you've read the books, you'll know what to expect. What amused me is how my perception and mental imagery of the novels is so different from the movies. I saw the Chamber of Secrets much more like an old tomb with walls that had become extremely rough from age, and much smaller than it appeared in the movie. It was definitely worth the price, and I'd like to see it again in the theater at some point once the hype wears down. [bar] We had a rough gaming session on Saturday. Events (with recap to be posted over at [geekywitch] in a bit) are turning to where issues like I had with Kestra are now going to start happening with Tanya, but with a twist. Regardless of how much I hate having to play a character which doesn't trust or respect Erich's character, I'm not going to stop playing Tanya because of it. Kestra I was struggling with anyway, and having to play off of Erich in a negative way didn't help. Tanya, well... she's sticking around. In retrospect, I should have tried writing my [nanowrimo] [novel] about Tanya, rather than take the direction I had. I've never written Tanya's backstory, and it would have solved two problems with writing at once. She's a deep, complex character that took a lot of fumbling and confusion to develop, but once she got around 11th level or so, I started to get a real grasp on her. She's not an easy character to play, but she's damn fun. There's a lot of me in her, yet a lot of her personality is completely NOT me. Even if I can't quite get it out during the game, I have a mental grasp of who she is. I don't like having to play my characters as disliking other party members. It's hard not to let it get personal, and particularly when it's with my own boyfriend, it's quite taxing. When I played Kestra, I was exhausted after the sessions, not from the late nights, but because my nerves were frayed from dealing with the anxiety of having to be constantly defensive and confrontational. I hated it. I still hate it. But yet here it is again. Ironically with Erich playing the same character. We've chatted about it a bit, mostly last night. And he totally understands my reasoning on it, but at the same time, I'm still not going to enjoy it. In a way, I'm glad that we're going to be putting our Forgotten Realms campaign on hold for a while as we do some stuff for Kalamar (which sadly, I won't be able to post the recaps for since we're going to be doing some playtesting. First-printing copyrights are going to get involved here and non-disclosure forms. I'll figure out something else to do with [geekywitch] in the interim). I just don't like having to do it. Yet in this case, playing Tanya in any other way would be completely and utterly out of character. When you worship the lawful neutral god of death, and consider death a normal part of existence, yet something that should not be treated lightly. When one of your party members decides to kill off two other party members because they've gone insane and the only thing that Tanya could do is a greater restoration spell (I can do one per day, and didn't have one available) to heal them... well, great. Then I'm put on the spot to use an unrechargable item that has true restorations on it (might I mention that this weekend's antics caused me to use HALF of the remaining charges) or look like a schmuck with the two dead party members in the room. Grrrr..... JT and I talked about it via AIM yesterday a bit, and Tanya received a bit of a warning for her behavior during the ordeal. It was justified and not too harsh, and as a character, Tanya would take it to heart and with a great deal of self-introspection. Ah well, it's just a game. And one of these days Tanya will have to retire from adventuring full time anyway. It's inevitable-- she's nearly 19th level now and has a church of her own to run now. Perhaps this will be one of the things that brings her back to that type of service, rather than going off adventuring. Still... *grumble* It's frustrating to have to have my hand given to me in a situation, rather than be able to make a choice, particularly in a game where there is always a way out, even if it's hidden at the moment. Thankfully crap like this doesn't happen too often. 10:30 a.m. - 18 November 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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