25 Things About You (The Player!)

Mariena

I loved this thread on the old forums because of how interesting y'all are! So here it is, back again. a list of twenty five things about yourself. I will start!

1. I met my love on Aetolia (Neithan/Alistaire), and he is due to be livin' in Ohio in less than twenty days now. Also, we are getting married.

2. I live in Ohio. I will be twenty five in July. I am a pasty Irish white that's prone to burning and freckling.

3. I work at my local community college at the Testing Center, proctoring tests for those who didn't bother to go to class, are from different colleges and happened to be close to ours during a testing time, Pearson VUE testers (EMT and the like) among random others.

4. Ohio is plagued by deer. I hate them when they are on my road or threatening to be on my road. Otherwise I tolerate them.

5. I don't care if people hunt, I just don't approve of sport hunting when they don't use the entire animal. If you go a killin' make sure it's for sustenance for yourself or others.

6.. My tire blew up (literally, one of the plugs and the valve blew themselves out of my tire). The front two were so bald that I had to sign a waiver a month ago when I got my oil changed stating WalMart told me about it. I guess they were right! Mom and Grandma bought me a tire each for Christmas Go Go Gadget Safety!

7. That tire episode heralded my phone's car charger exploding when I tried to plug it in, being late to work by an hour, having to unlock lockers for testers the entire day because our keys keep getting stolen, a nose bleed, and being summoned for Jury Duty.

8. All of the aforementioned bullshit turned out fine though. New Tires and the very next day. HOBBIT! I think Peter Jackson is brilliant and their sets are nothing short of masterful.

9. Kili from the Hobbit is Mitchell the Vampire in BBC America's Being Human. Why is this about me? I thought he was cute.

10. I am pagan.

11. I like (love) (Christina Hendrick's) boobs.

12.  It has been decided that we are going to do the Time Warp as our first dance song (if they make us dance at all) at our wedding.

13. I am an avid reader. I am currently chewing through the Death Gate Cycle and have a new Black Dagger Brotherhood series book to read  after. Also in the middle of Game of Thrones.

14. I have a serious thing for new technology. I loves it, preciouss.

15. I bought a 17.3 inch NEseries Gateway laptop with Windows 8. So far, the operating system is similar enough to not cause trauma, but different enough to still call for an acclimation period.

16. Neithan and I are the proud owners of the King of Kitties, Leonidas. He is the Eater of Toes and the Reaper of Passing Heads from the Top of the Fridge. Also he is the Prime Minister of Mooching Food and Demanding Sustenance.

17. I fully endorse getting your mental issues in check. Go talk about them to your doctors. I did and it is wonderful.

18. I don't know how I would get anywhere without GPS. My directional skill is deplorable.

19. I love to draw, doodle, craft, sew, paint, create, and make.

20. I have taken it upon myself to decorate the Testing Center desks for every holiday imaginable.

21. I know what my third and likely my fourth and fifth tattoos are and where they are going.

22. I am steadily working on losing fifty pounds for health and non-jiggling.

23. I own far too many clothes. Does this stop me from buying more? Not very likely.

24. I honestly love making my house pretty, clean, and well-cared for too. I also like to cook. I am still learning the cooking trade though, so results may vary.

25. My musical tastes are entirely random. Country, some rap, rock of almost any genre, metal (symphonic, melodic, nerdy, pirate, pagan, folk, so on and so on and so on), musical numbers, glee music, A Capella, whatever Trans Siberian Orchestra is.

Arbre

1.  My name is Casey Kelley and I’ll be 27 in a few days.  I’m white, female, and live in the Jacksonville, Florida area.

2.  I met my husband (Ansnom/Albert/Lucilla) through Aetolia.  In March, we will have been married for five years.

3.  I was in the Navy, and I like to tell stories about it –way- too much.  My biggest regret is having to get out.

4.  I have bipolar affective disorder and because of this, I ended up on suicide watch in the hospital for three days in 2008.  This is fairly common knowledge, since I’ve found that talking about it makes me feel less of a pariah for having it.  I’ve reached the point in medication that I’ve started going to counseling, because even if my meds are perfect, they alone won’t fix me – I’ve got to fix the bad habits I’ve accumulated to be able to be healthy.

5.  I also have rheumatoid arthritis.  Basically, my body hates me.  I’ve finally got it more or less under control, but the drug I take is so strong that it interacts badly with my mood medication, AND I can’t get pregnant on it.  The latter is not an immediate concern, but I would one day like to spawn with Ansnom.

6.  I am an American in my 20s, and therefore I live with my parents (thanks, economy!).  Me, Ansnom, my mother, my father, and my older brother all live together.  Though everyone does their very best to keep out of each other’s faces, it’s a difficult situation.

7.  I have the best parents on the face of the planet.  As much as I hate to admit this and sound like a five year old, my mother is probably my best friend.  She goes way out of her way physically, emotionally, and financially to try to take care of me.  My dad’s pretty cool too.  He goes way out of his way to embarrass and otherwise traumatize me.

8.  I’m in college now, working on my Associate’s degree.  I’m hoping to graduate at the end of the summer, barring any of my classes exploding.  I also “work” four hours a day, three days a week (or will be, when the semester starts back up) up in the front office.  No, I don’t get a tuition break for this.

9.  Speaking of work, I have the best job ever.  I do, literally, almost nothing.  My responsibilities are to make sure the printers are full of paper (and unjam them when Dr. Beverly decides to print FOUR MILLION COPIES of his tests); make copies of all of Dr. MacNichol’s paperwork, because evidently she’s incapable of doing it herself (I really don’t mind doing it though, honestly); water the plants in the office; pick up and sort the mail; answer the phone (and transfer most of the calls to Counseling).  I also do my homework, read my kindle, talk with my coworkers, and watch the baby panda on the webcam at the San Diego Zoo.

10.  Back to school, I’ve put in my application to go to the University of Florida.  I’m very nervous about this, since I’ve got a mediocre GPA (2.84 as of this semester) and UF is one of the top five schools in the nation.  I put in my application as soon as they opened them for my major (English) and semester, and they’ve noted that they’ve received my transcripts, so all I can do now is wait.  Likely, I won’t hear anything back until like February, but that hasn’t stopped me from daily checking my account.

11.  I’m not sure what I want to be if I grow up.  Everyone I’ve talked to says go to get the degree that interests you, not the logical one, and that you’ll usually find your way along the course of time.  My backup plan is to teach school, though it’s not really what I want to do.  Teaching college might not be bad, teaching people who actually WANT to be there.  I’ve considered law, but as of currently I’m too intimidated by the thought of law school.  In any case, I have several years.

12.  Christmas is my favorite time of the year.  Everything about it entrances me, -especially- Christmas lights.  They’re probably my favorite thing on the face of the planet.  Patio lights even make me happy, because they’re –almost- the same thing, and they’re around all year.  I love putting up the Christmas tree, even though it’s a pain, and I convinced Ansnom to help me set up the Lionel train around it this year.  Every year I make him take me driving through neighborhoods to look at all of the lights, and this year as an early birthday present, we went to St. Augustine and did a carriage ride through Nights of Lights (they light up the entire historic district with, literally, two million lights).  The only thing I don’t like (besides Ansnom’s complaining about the music) is that I have cats, so I can’t put tinsel on the tree.

13. In that sort of train of thought, I’m actually not Christian.  I’m some breed of pagan, and though I hate using the word Wiccan because of the connotation, it’s probably the closest to my beliefs.  I just learned a little about deism, and I need to do more research to say yes, but that seems in line with my beliefs as well.  I take full credit for converting Mariena (not really).

14.  I joined the Order of the Eastern Star (associated with the Masons) because a friend of mine more or less told me to.  She showed up to my initiation in March, and then the meeting on Thursday, so I’m a bit put out about her getting me to join with all of these strangers who are twice my age or better and then ditching me, but I’m glad I did join.  They are all really nice, and at the very least it gets me out of the house a couple of times a month.

15.  I’ve lost 50 pounds.  I’ve said this all over the forums, so I won’t go on further about it.

16.  I love music; I thrive on it, can’t live without it.  I was the DJ at a skating rink for years in High School, which is what started my addiction.  Unlike most people who say they listen to everything, I actually –do-.  There is very, very little that I don’t like: things that scream at me, gangster rap, ‘classic rock’ (the Born to be Wild-esque stuff).  I like country, indie, dance, trance, techno, alternative, pop, most R&B, classical (baroque, etc), rock opera, ska, punk, and I’m sure a hundred others I can’t think of immediately.

17.  On the flip side, I all but hate TV.  There are some shows that I like, but I’m not the kind of person who can just sit and what TV for hours on end – I’d rather have music on.  TV shows I do love (off the top of my head) are JAG (all time favorite), NCIS, Game of Thrones, and Duck Dynasty (you need to watch this show if you’ve never seen it).  My favorite movie of all time is the Lion King.  I can quote the entire thing.

18.  I’m taking a creative writing course this upcoming semester in hopes that it’ll get me back into writing.  My medication has, as is common, taken away a lot of my creativity.  You can tell how it’s changed and I’ve adjusted to it based on if I spend all of my time bashing or RPing (things have been better lately).  Despite being able to RP, writing on my own is still coming difficultly to me; maybe this class will kickstart it again, now that I’m more or less balanced.

19.  I’m incredibly competitive, and judge myself based on the accomplishments of others.  This is why I constantly strive for positions of leadership, why I avoid joining organizations with Xavin if I can help it, and why it bothers me so much that I failed at Feral Will.

20.  Despite having Arbre in a place/personality that I love of her, I’ve discovered that I need to make some changes to her if I, the player, am going to continue having fun with the game.  Guildhopping a bit until finding my Shammies helped, but the biggest one has been making Arbre more social and getting rid of her holier-than-thou attitude.  It was so much fun to play, but it left me with few people to RP with.

21.  I’m really bad at video games, despite how much I –adore- Zelda.  Ansnom’s managed to find a handful of other games I like, but he’s constantly having to help me with them or looking up a walkthrough.

22.  I get sick –really- easily.  If anyone within a 30 mile radius of me is sick, I’ll catch it and it’ll be ten times worse.  I used to share food and drink with my friend in the Navy, and walking back from class one day, he mentioned his throat hurt.  I freaked out, yelling at him about knowing this and still sharing my drink.  Six hours later, I sent him a (truthful) text message saying, “I’m in the hospital,” and then turned my phone off.

23.  I’m mean without intending to be.  I have a rough sense of humor, and offend people easily.  Sometimes I’ll go a couple of days being REALLY nice to Xavin just because I realize I’ve been horrid and he’s supposed to be my bestie.  This does nothing to comfort him, I think, only makes him paranoid.

24.  I’m a cat person.  I’ve discovered that the magic number is two, and I prefer boys to girls, but if I could have ten thousand cats and them not piss everywhere, I would.  We make jokes about giving Frodo to a Chinese place and getting free food for life (sorry for the racism there, I’m not sincere!) and my brother the other day goes, “you’d cry,” and I pouted and slumped away.  I love my FroFro.

25.  I’m scare of everything, specifically dead people, zombies, and needles in my eyes.  That last one is a new discovery.  I’m not a fan of needles, they freak me out, and I don’t like anything touching my eyes, like I could never wear contacts.  I walked through the room while Momma was watching TV and the guy says, “I’m gonna have to stick this needle in your eye, it might sting a little,” and by the time I made it to my bedroom I was freaking out and half-crying.

Alistaire

1. My name is Britton, Pronounced like Britain. I have a long and hateful relationship with my name. It has caused many people to mess with me, call me annoying things and the like throughout my life. Despite this, it is mine and I have come to love it.

2. I've lived in Las Vegas, Nevada for the past...nearly twenty years. In January, I am moving from my big city to a small town, six states from my family and everyone I've grown up with. I am doing all of this to live with Mariena, get married and all that nice stuff. A week ago, the idea of this scared the hell out of me. It no longer does.

3. I have three blood related siblings and many, many more who have been adopted into the family. My elder brother is my only full blooded sibling. I also have two half-siblings, a sister and brother. I live with my adopted brother, who is so much like me in attitude that my mother calls us "The twins" - I am 5'7" and white. He is 6'2" and asian. Twins indeed.

4. Mariena and I are getting married at the courthouse, without a big fuss. Afterwards, we will gather our families and have a big celebration and things. The only "traditional" thing about our wedding-celebration will be what goes on afterward.

5. I'm a dog person. Always have been, always will be. Despite this, I love our little Leonidas. He will only continue to get away with some of those things until I'm there. Mari is waaaay more understanding than I am.

6. I own: Two longswords, a sabre, a katana, a two-headed flail, a longbow and three battleaxes. I also own six or seven daggers, a suit of chainmail, pieces of platemail and a shield. I love weapons and armour, they're a part of our history and culture.

7. I am Pagan. Most of my friends and family aren't aware of this, because like many other things, I rarely talk about it. I am a generally private person, unless asked directly about things.

8. I have a crippling fear of things touching/harming eyeballs. (And something in common with Arb! Scary. )

9. I originally came back to Aetolia for a drama-free game I could goof off on, this directly effected Neithan's carefree and mischievous attitude. I realized shortly after that Aetolia > Imperian and never really went back.

10. I've been told that I can be abrasive, and that I often look like I'm in a bad mood. I'm really not! I'm just a quiet type of person and my dark hair and eyes seem to combine with my light complexion to make me look grumpy.

11. I do not like chocolate. I don't like most sweets at all. I also don't really like most vegetables, but fruit is pretty good. If I could live entirely on meat (preferably of the medium rare temperature) I would.

12. If there were exactly 1,000 things in the world, I would not care about roughly 900 of them. Most things that don't directly effect myself or my loved ones simply don't matter to me.

13. I love music. I played the violin for years, but could never afford one of my own (my family has always been on the lower end of the income scale) so I stopped. My favorite kinds of music are metal and country. I will not listen to "music" that is produced without instruments. I hate it.

14. I know what my next tattoo will be, and have a rough idea of the additions that will be made to it once I am a father.

15. I go to the gym...roughly five days out of every week. I don't do this because I am unhealthy or need to lose weight. I do it, partially, because it encourages my best friend to go. I also do it partially because I am a vain little guy.

16. I love sports. Hockey, American Football, Baseball. I could spend days upon days watching games and not get bored. All of my teams (as of last year) have won a championship in their particular sport/division and, even if they had not, I would stick with them. I don't like bandwagoners.

17. I wanted to play Football when I was young, but I was a very small child, so my mom wouldn't let me. Instead, I ended up signing up for Baseball. This led to me playing on my High School baseball team. I am extremely proud of this.

18. Despite having grown up in a massive city and not one of the southern states, I am very much a representation of the American South. I say please and thank ya (normally not you), I hold doors and pull out chairs for ladies. I am proud and faithful (even if it isn't to the normal "Southern" religion). I love trucks and guns, I love bbq and bonfires and I love drinking.

19. I am completely, totally, 100% a momma's boy and damn proud of it.

20. I have known what I wanted to name my future daughter for years now and always worried that their potential mother would disagree. She doesn't.

21. One day, I would like to visit Europe. Specifically Norway, Germany and other birthplaces of my favorite metal bands. If possible, I will attend the Wacken festival at least once in my life, and when Blind Guardian steps on stage, I may faint from excitement.

22. My best Aetolian friend (Not counting Mari) is Daingean. He's the only non-family member I know for certain will be invited to the wedding, and he'll be there if I have to drive all the way to Canada and kidnap him.

23. I am, very probably, reading, playing a video game and/or singing at almost all times. I don't know if people think I sing well, but I also don't care.

24. While I would be entirely incapable of picking a favorite book series, or even narrowing it down beyond twenty or so, my favorite game series is either Mass Effect, Dragon Age or the Elder Scrolls.

25. Neithan's Azudim description is inspired by the Patryns in Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Death Gate Cycle.

Nola

1. My name is Paige.

2. I'm 22 years old, was born on September 15th, 1990.

3. I live in Florida. 

4. I'm going back to college this spring to continue working on my Associates of Arts.

5. I own 3 cats. An orange tabby named Becky, a black manx-mix named Alex, and a russian-blue mix named Balou (like the jungle book!). I love all of them. 

6. I have a large circle of friends that I've kept and cherish from elementary, middle, and high school. Some of who you may know (Ninette and Nadia are two.) I love my friends and I would do just about anything for them. 

7. I have a very large family as well, most of which are all very close. I love it when my dad's side gets together on the holidays (especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, or for either of my grandparents' birthdays - those are all always big deals for us). They cook lots of awesome food and everyone just loves and supports one another. I'm very grateful for all of them, and fortunate. 

8. I was raised by my mother's grandparents, who I still live with, on their 'farm'- my grandfather is in his late 80s and one of the healthiest people I know because he maintains the large grape vineyard we have, grows peas in the summertime, and greens in the late fall-winter. I have a lot of respect for both of them. This is partly because I do not have a job, but mostly because I've no reason to leave, as well as for everyone's peace of mind, especially with my grandmother's recent health issues with her heart. I don't think she would be here today if I hadn't been there to call 911. 

9. I love art. I love everything about it. I believe that art and love are the two things that make the world a beautiful place. 

10. I can't stand complete silence, so I usually have music playing 24/7.

11. I also can't stand being or feeling completely alone. Its one of the main reasons I play Aetolia.

12. The other reason I play Aetolia is because I crave something with a bit of magic to it. Something that breaks away from the dry shell that I consider reality to have, where there are mysteries and so many possibilities.

13. I can sleep just about anywhere. Some of my friends think I'll eventually come to have narcolepsy. 

14. I used to have a seizure disorder, where I suffered from pre-seizures regularly throughout the beginning of high school for 3 years, unsure of what they were. I'd end up in random places, uncertain of why I was there or where I was going, because I'd lose all memory during those transitions, and become unable to properly communicate, and if I do, I won't remember it after I snap back, and usually fall asleep afterwards. I began to have panic attacks before them, because I could sense when they were starting, and be completely helpless to stop it. I feared I'd eventually forget myself and I would no longer exist, and thus, neither would my world, my friends, or my family, so I started keeping journal entries and taking a billion pictures. People thought I was strange for it. I finally was able to be diagnosed properly (originally the doctors told me I had an anxiety disorder, which I strongly disagreed to, and thus didn't take my prescription) after I had a grand mal seizure in the car with my dad. 

15. I had one of those grand mal seizures in the middle of my school's cafeteria during one of the busiest lunch hours (my school was really, really big too). I was told that half the people in the cafeteria were concerned, and that the other half was laughing. I didn't care too much because I had completely blacked out, so I don't remember any of it! I got a lot of 'Hey, you're that girl who had that seizure' afterwards and my friends in my art class made me a card while I was out the next couple of days following. I still have it. 

16. I love Tales (ie: Tales of Symphonia), Harvest Moon or Rune Factory, and Fire Emblem games. 

17. I have headaches often. I've built up a tolerance to just about every average pain reliever there is because of it, and am back to using the first kind again. 

18. I love volleyball. Sometimes I daydream about playing. 

19. I believe in the power of laughter. 

20. I am a Christian. But I'm not in-your-face, and respect other religions and the choices people make regarding them. 

21. Before I started playing Aetolia, I read a lot. I especially love the Claidi series, the Uglies series, and most of Charles de Lint's work. As well as Stonehenge. 

22. I don't like accepting financial help of any kind, and won't if I have any other option. I feel guilty even when I'm given gifts.

23.  I love culture. I suppose the specific term would be Anthropology. I find it intriguing, exotic and beautiful. 

24. I also have had a love and interest in minerals and rocks, and considered going to school to study it. But the inconvenience of where I'd have to go for the appropriate courses and my inability with math made me reconsider.

25. I lead a pretty average life. 

Demarcus

1. My name is Ryan and I currently live in St. Paul, MN. Over the last 27 (I think it's 27...) years I've lived in many different places and travelled most of the way across the globe (Switzerland to Thailand is the last leg that I need to have been "around the globe") and yet I've some how managed to end up back in Minnesota. And I like it.

2. I do not know how old i am. As silly as that sounds, just when I think I know, my wife informs me that I'm off by 2 years. The direction is never the same, and it's +/- 2 years. Pretty much my birthday is the only day I actually know how old I am.

3. I wanted to be a nuclear physicsts. I have since abandoned those dreams thanks to the Fukushima incident setting back all of the progress nuclear power had made in the last 20-30 years.

4. Now I want to be a medical physicsts. I think I've finally got my head in order to pursue that dream. Fingers crossed for Fall of 2013, if not, Fall of 2014 for sure.

5. I will eat anything once.

6. I can sleep almost anywhere in almost any position under almost any circumstances. I love to sleep. Even if it isn't necessarily the most comfortable thing.

7. I currently work for Union Pacific Railroad as an Operations Manager. I've got the overnight shift, 1900 to 0700. There is a reason the railroad has to pay it's employees as much money as they do, because it's very stressful and really, really sucky. Also, guys/gals fresh out of high school start making more money than I do, with better benefits. I don't care to stick around to maybe make the "big bucks".

8. I have a sword. It may not be the armory that other people boast, but it is my sword, made for me. It has been worn/used in several ceremonies, including my wedding and a couple of Navy retirements. Also, I kind of suck at sword drill. I suck a lot worse at rifle drill. I prefer to just look pretty.

9. I used to play Achaea. Up until about 3 weeks ago. Then I finally had enough with the lulzpk and overabundance of jerkwads, <censored>, <censored>, <censored>, and <censored> that I needed a change. I had dabbled in Aetolia earlier, but now I'm pretty sure I'm here to stay.

10. I've been playing text-based games since I was 9. So I guess that's roughly 2/3rds of my life. It's been partly off and on. The majority of it was spent playing Gemstone III/IV. Now I have a wife that plays Achaea and a little Aetolia. It is awesome.

11. My wife and I have a daschund/beagle mix. She is spoiled rotten and thinks she rules the world. She's also ridiculously cute and you can't help but let her walk all over you.

12. I collect baseball cards. I decided I needed a hobby about 1.5 years ago outside of my gaming, and picked this back up from my childhood. I focus on my favorite team, the Minnesota Twins, and particularily cards of our HoF pitcher, Bert Blyleven. My goal is to collect at a copy of every one of his ~750 cards produced to date, as well as future cards. I'm at about 10%.

13. I'm a bit of the black sheep in my family. My younger sister is currently going to medical school. My brother works in banking. My older sister is an Olympic bronze medalist. I'm pretty much competing against my brother to stay off the bottom of the ladder.

13. a) My sister is a two-time Olympian. She competed in Beijing in 2008 in the Women's Double Sculls. In London, she rowed in the Womens Quadruple Sculls, and her team were the first Americans to medal in the event since 1972. If I recall correctly, 1972 was the first year the Women's Quadruple Sculls was introduced, but it was a coxed race (i.e. the boat had a coxswain). In 1976, the coxswain was dropped. So technically they are the only Americans to medal in that particular event. Pretty cool tidbit of random trivia.

14. I am a strong supporter of the recognition of mental illness early and continued, quality treatment that isn't necessarily medicate the bajeezes out of everyone. NAMI is my charity of choice.

15. I am extremely proud of earning a commission in the United States Navy and the subsequent tour of duty. Being on a ship is awesome, and I feel very much at home on the open ocean.

16. I'm a bit of an amateur astronomer. I've done some data collection with CCD photometry on variable stars. This is virtually impossible to do now in the middle of a major metropolitan area.

17. I genuinely enjoy helping people. I derive a great deal of satisfaction from helping people obtain their goals, whether that is career progression, educational goals, or anything. This is a big, big motivating factor for my impending career change.

18. I met my wife while time travelling. I was a Resident Advisor in college and she lived in my dorm Junior year. I was on rounds during daylights savings fall semester, and she asked me what I was doing and I replied "Time travelling." because the official time had changed from 0159 to 0100 recently, indicating a shift backwards in time. She thought it was amusing and came down to my room after I was off duty to figure out what I was talking about. We went on a date 3 days later at a coffee house and talked for over 4 hours. We were politely asked to leave because the coffee house was closing. I had never and still have not talked to a person in any sort of engaged fashion for 4 hours before/up to this day other than my wife. I pretty much knew at that point I was going to marry her.

19. I am a very vengeful person. If I feel you have sleighted me, I don't adhere to 'an eye for an eye'. Instead, I go for 'even a papercut means I will destroy your entire world'. I will plot ways to hurt you the most until I get bored or sleighted by someone else.

20. I am otherwise a very reasonable, relaxed person. I go with the flow most of the time and tend to let most things roll off my back. Unless you caused them. Then I will end you. But otherwise, no big deal.

21. I do not like to travel. If I do, I prefer to drive if at all plausible. While I do not necessarily mind flying, it is not something that I would chose to do if there are alternatives available. Some people do not get this and I shake my head in their general direction.

22. I love movies. A lot. I love to critique movies. Not so much on the technical aspects, but for accuracy/acting/internal consistency/overall enjoyment and the like.

23. I really enjoy optimization. It is something that I find myself inherently doing. If someone tries to do something and it is slower/less effective, I get very frustrated.

24. As a result of my fascination with optimization, I tend to be very resourceful. I love playing games and having the "Ohhhh, hell yeah!" moment happen when someone asks if anyone has something ridiculous and I tell them I have that and more.

25. The aforementioned fascination and traits lead me to play games not in the typical fashion of trying to "win". I end up making my own victory conditions and play the game to win by my set of victory conditions.

Daingean

1. My name is Karl, and I'm Canadian. Twenty four as of August, though nearly always assumed to be in my thirties if people are asked to guess. This isn't because I look old, it's because I act/speak old.

2. I have spastic cerebral palsy. On a scale of one to ten, it's probably around a two. Most people assume I've just hurt myself in an accident and walk funny because of it.

3. I love three. I have three reasons for every action I undertake, or three reasons I won't do something. I tend to do a lot of things in multiples of three, which clashes only with the fact that where time is concerned, I do almost nothing when the minute hand isn't on a multiple five, whenever I have the choice.

4. I have an extremely active imagination, which is why I prefer muds to graphical games. I can do anything in a mud, exactly how I want it, and no one can tell me that my vision is wrong.

5. I'm often assumed to be autistic, because of the way[s] I tend to interact with other people.

6. I drink tea almost exclusively when not drinking alcohol, and have been known to pull out bags of tea and a portable kettle at extremely random times.

7. I need things to match, whenever possible. It's not strong enough to be considered a compulsion, as I'm not inclined to fix -other- people's things that don't, but if its mine, it matches, or I will destroy it. This has caused me to wreck perfectly good things because something has happened that ruins the symmetry.

8. I am a navel enthusiast. After the eyes, the navel is my favorite part of another person.

9. I am a cat person, and an other-people's-dog person. I like almost everything about dogs, except, I am not the right sort of person to give them the proper attention, and thus, feel very very badly if I am required to look after one, because I know it is getting ignored most often.

10. I have two sisters, one younger and one older. I am very close to my older sister, and live with her and her fiance and my nephew. I am -not- close to my little sister, and haven't spoken to her beyond requests from my older sister that I do so in almost four years. I am not impolite, when we interact. She's just made choices that I very much oppose, and in an effort to respect her right to make them without being treated poorly, I've kept my distance because I do not trust my temper to hold in the face of prolonged exposure to her.

11. I share some traits with Daingean - most notably, his tendency to fill in what people look like, regardless of what they actually look like. I am very, very bad at remembering people in a physical sense. I tend to fixate on personality, which can be problematic, because I can actually treat a person with a varied personality as multiple people. This has strained relationships, and I tend to get along best with 'mellow' individuals that are reliable in their emotional spectrum.

12. In direct controversy with the previous point, I very much adore artists and generally expressive people. Singers, musicians, graphical artists, descriptive writers, any sort of artistic expression will endear me to a person. The stronger their passion for their art, the more likely I am to be drawn to them. I rarely manage to maintain a long relationship with these type of people, however - because my interest in them is almost wholly centered around their passion, and I can be quite callous and distant in regards to -any- other aspect of their life.

13. I have been run over by cars numerous times. It usually happens in the wintertime, because it takes me longer to cross the roads in certain conditions than the cross walks allow for. Amusingly, a higher number of these accidents have happened while I wore my favorite T-shirt - which bears the line, 'This Karl Sucks'. Before anyone asks, it's a joke that maybe .. three people would understand instantly, and has nothing to do with fellatio.

14. I prefer pie over cake, in every case.

15. I am open to new things, and trying to expand my horizons - however, when I find a favorite of something - favorite brand, favorite flavor, favorite cook, etcetera - I rarely deviate from that one thing in its respective niche. This has shown itself in a few ways in my mudding. An easy example is Daingean's open refusal to eat or drink anything that Elorin Tanarian didn't prepare. This makes me a bit of a [sharp object] sometimes, as I can find it difficult to see the value in the work of other people in the same field as my favorite. As a result of this, I do my best not to pick favorites in some things.

16. I cannot lie to direct questions, in any medium. I do not however feel obligated to provide the answer you want, though. This has caused people to ask me -very- specific questions at times.

17. I have trouble keeping eye contact with people I find attractive, but it's not because I'm shy. It's because I tend to stare, and I'm very much aware that it's rude. So, I tend most often to peer directly over the left shoulder of a person I'm attracted to.

18. I collect sad songs that sound happy, and songs about unicorns.

19. I always wanted to be a voice actor as a kid, but I could never properly change my voice to something that didn't resemble me with an accent. As a result, I like to play with different accents, and will sometimes slip into and out of them in casual conversation. I wouldn't go so far as to claim the accents are authentic, but they do amuse me.

20. Nearly every one of my characters ends up short, sooner or later, even if they don't start out that way. I think it's my way of fighting what I see as an obnoxious tendency of the general populous to be statuesque. I am aware that my labeling of this tendency as obnoxious is vaguely hypocritical in the face of my earlier statement that I play muds to suit my own vision.

21. I don't encourage long term friendships, in game or in real life. I was very nomadic as a child, sometimes staying in a place only a few days before we'd move again, and that didn't change until my late teens, when my sister and I got our first place together. As a result, I still tend to assume that everything I own is temporary, and so, go out of my way to avoid the collection of things that could be considered 'roots', despite the fact that I've lived in the last two places I've called home for a [relatively] long period. The internet has allowed me to maintain some long term bonds, and the concept is very alien to me.

22. Almost everything I own except my computer fits into a single rubbermaid container that can be stored in the trunk of a small car without taking up more than a third. In an effort to embrace the permanency of my new home, I bought a bed frame. It still feels as though I'm borrowing it.

23. I will vomit if made to inhale the scent of freshly popped popcorn. I attempted to combat this by getting a job at a movie theater. It did not work, despite my holding the job for a number of years.

24. I identify as a pansexual.

25. Left to my own devices, I am completely withdrawn and antisocial. When forced to interact with others, I am very outgoing and open. This trait is present in almost all of my characters, because it is my natural inclination. The difference in my manner is so prevalent that my sister used to come visit me at work just to marvel that I was the same person. It often caused discontent among my co-workers, because they would assume I didn't like them because I was disinterested in interacting with them socially.

Valenae

1.) My name is Lynn but it's not my given name. There's this tradition in my family that every first born girl of the generation is named a boy's name. I have no clue why or how that is endearing but I was Toni, named after some grandfather that existed at some point. I believe his name was spelled with a 'y' instead of an 'i'. 

2.) I'm the third oldest of nine children. Don't let that surprise you - all of them are either half or step and I'm only older than the fourth child by a handful of months. 

3.) I grew up with a mexican stepfather and all of my other siblings are half mexican. I lived in the same culture, learned to cook all of the same food, and even learned to read, write, and clumsily speak Spanish. I identify as mexican even though I have blue eyes, blond hair, and white skin. 

4.) I love to scrapbook. I keep little things that remind me of rare occasions and paste them in. I still have the movie stub from the first date I ever went on complete with my ex's signature. I still occasionally update my diary and my journal. 

5.) I have a love for politics and business though seeing someone mistreated makes me violently angry.  

6.) Contrary to number five, I can get overly blunt with people to the point of hurting feelings. That being said, I appreciate bluntness in people as long as its true and not at someone else's expense to inflate their ego. 

7.) I have done many projects irl as both an advocate and as an unaffiliated volunteer. No matter how much I do I still want to do more and I can't see myself being in any career path that doesn't advocate for human rights. Currently I'm a nursing assistant but after I graduate I hope to go to law school and specialize in IHL. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. 

8.) I met my boyfriend, Stabbity, on Aetolian forums. 

9.) I watch a lot of documentaries about a wide range of subjects. 

10.) I want to travel and see as many countries as I can. I hope to go to Cambodia next summer but its still up in the air. 

11.) Contrary to that, the perfect night for me is just hanging around the house. I like to snowboard, ski, hike and several other activities but I work a lot, go to school, and debate - my time is very limited. I usually start out getting dressed to do something but get distracted and look up to notice I wanted to leave three hours ago. lol Damn you, IRC. 

12.) I wouldn't call myself 'antisocial' but I do need lots of time to myself to recharge. 

If I think up anything else I'll post it. 

Aldric

1) I'm evidently one of the only people that hasn't met a significant other through Aetolia, and I'm admittedly jealous.

If I think up anything else I'll post it.

Zun

1) I like the idea of this thread rapidly becoming '1 Thing About You' so I can participate without sharing.

Meyvitch

1.) I'm 26.

2.) I dislike snow and being cold. SO OF COURSE I

3.) Live in Maine, USA.

4.) I like dragons and scifi. I am looking forward to next year's Star Trek movie. Cumberbatch is awesome and I want to see his frankenstein play, but I think I missed it.

Valenae

Meyvitch said:

next year's Star Trek movie.

Wait, what? 

Alistaire

You people are lazy and/or missing the entire point of this.

Sarita

1. My name's Olivia. I'm 27, and I live near Washington, DC.

2. I'm very happily married to a wonderful man who I met on Aetolia.

3. I have degrees in Biology and Epidemiology, and I intend to begin working in one of those fields as soon as I can find someone willing to hire me. That said, I still want to be an actress and a writer and a scientist and an Olympic athlete and a singer and an astronaut when I grow up. Afterwards, when I retire, I want to be a travel writer specializing in vineyards and wine from around the world.

4. I won't get to be an astronaut. Like others in this thread, I have a horrible, terribly, nasty, uncurable chronic disease that won't kill me outright, but will make things miserable for me sometimes. Mine's epilepsy.

5. Or it could be lupus, or a brain tumor, or some creepy stuff with my thyroid. Since being diagnosed in 2006, I've been working on getting my medicine sorted out so that I stop having seizures. We finally got to a point early this year where I managed to go about ten and half months without a single one - the longest period of time ever in my personal record. Last month for no apparent reason, I started having seizures again. I've had six since then, and I'm being put through lots of tests and visits with doctors to try and figure out why.

6. In addition to the seizures in the past month, I've had a nearly constant fever, extreme fatigue, and absolutely no other symptoms of anything else. Some days it's been so bad that I can't handle being awake for more than a few hours at a time.

7. Besides all of my own problems, I've had to deal with several other members of my family getting sick all around the same time too. My mother had surgery about three weeks ago, and all three of my surviving grandparents have been in the hospital between Thanksgiving and now. The number of people able to drive compared to the number of people who need to be visited or driven to doctors/hospitals/etc. has been making things extremely tricky.

8. I'm not a big music person. I only listen to the radio if someone else put it on first. When I listen to things on my ipod, chances are it's something I burned off of a CD from middle school (when people actually used CDs for music), or it's something I picked up after seeing the musical.

9. Nine's one of my favorite numbers for some reason.

10. Every now and then, I either skip or seriously delay a meal simply because I can't decide what I want to eat.

11. My husband can be almost as bad as me about making food decisions, especially when we're going out to eat. This is one of the biggest problems with our marriage.

12. I'm not scared of much, but I can and will scream and cry at the sight of a spider, especially if we're both in a car and it jumps on me. This can also be a problem.

13. I had a dog growing up, and I always considered myself more of a dog person than a cat person, but I'm living with two cats and no dogs at the moment. They're cute too, I guess.

14. Lately I feel like a very calm, laid-back sort of person, but it's hard to tell if I'm actually at a point in my life where I'm genuinely emotionally stable, or if I'm just so exhausted physically that I don't have enough energy to have much of an emotional response to anything.

15. I get kind of irked when people ask me to try food that I don't like because "this is better than the others you've had before" or "it doesn't really taste like that" or "it's an acquired taste." I know I don't like that food because I've tried it at least once before already and it didn't taste good to me. Why's that so hard to understand? This applies specifically to sushi and beer, but can also be applied to mushrooms, onions, and a few other things.

16. I'm writing a novel. I've been working on it off and on since 2006. I really should finish that.

17. I spent so much time writing, reading, and doing other things like that as a kid and teenager that I surprised everyone, including myself, when I realized that I wanted to study science in college.

18. I love to travel around the world, and I have a huge list of places I want visit and things I want to see. Probably the most intriguing to me, however, is the northern lights.

19. I had an ambulatory EEG going on, and I just had the electrodes removed this morning. I've been picking glue out of my hair all day, and it's still shedding. I look like I have a terrible case of dandruff. I also have very sensitive skin, and the chemicals involved with the electrodes being placed and removed have combined to make my face look and feel terrible. It's really itchy.

20. I am really tired and should sleep, but when I really want to finish something, I do. One of these days, I'll decide I really want to finish my novel too.

21. There's a place near me with a room filled with giant trampolines. I really want to go sometime, but I'd feel awkward asking most of my friends if they want to go with me since those kinds of places are usually filled with kids or families with kids. That said, is there anyone in Northern VA interested in going sometime?

22. I'm not a very material person, so I sometimes have a really hard time answering people who ask what I want for my birthday or holidays. Usually the answer is "socks" because I actually do like the kind with cute designs, or the ones that are all fuzzy, and that sort of thing. When people are actually able to come up with something that I haven't suggested and that still manages to amaze and delight me, I get a super warm and snuggly feeling deep inside. This happened one of the nights of Chanukah when my husband gave me a Harry Potter inspired wand that you can program to any button on a TV remote. Now I can turn it on and off with a dramatic swish, scroll through menus with up and down flicks, and play by pushing the wand forward with a confident thrust of about 10 cm.

23. I was born Jewish (from a Jewish mother), have practiced Judaism my entire life, and identify as a Jew publicly, but I have my own interpretations of what certain things mean that some of the more orthodox Jews disagree with. I also eat cheeseburgers, and they don't like that either.

24. Once upon a time, I heard that magic mushrooms cause hallucinations, and out of all the illegal drugs I heard about that day, that seemed like the best one to try, if I were ever interested in trying one. Since that day, I have had plenty of hallucinations during seizures and completely lost all interest in having any others.

25. I don't care about the meaning of life, but more than almost anything, I want my life to have meaning.

Daingean

Yeah, I almost had to fight the urge to flag the not-following-the-whole-point-of-the-topic-or-replying-to-those-that-did posts as off topic. C'mon people, it's not that hard to find twenty five facts of yourself.

I.. adore Sarita's twenty five, on that note. I almost want it on a shirt.

Valenae

Zun said:

1) I like the idea of this thread rapidly becoming '1 Thing About You' so I can participate without sharing.

Don't be a tool. 

13.) When I took the Myers-Briggs assessment I tested equally between the judging and perceiving which puts me square in the middle between an introverted, intuition, feeling, perceiving (INFP) and an introverted, intuition, feeling, judging (INFJ) individual.  

14.) I've switched my major many times in University. I'm now a Social Work and Business double major. It occurred to me the major I'm probably leaning toward is Community Organizing. lolz I'll be switching again. 

15.) Following that same train of thought - I'm impulsive. If I get an idea I just go do it. This still gets me in trouble sometimes. 

16.) I'm told I'm stubborn. I think those people are tossers. 

17.) I do, however, love competition. As mentioned before I'm in debate and will be going to West Point, Cornell, and Texas A&M for meets. 

18.) Contrary to the awesome way things are going, they were not always so awesome and I think that really crafted the way I see the world and all the people in it. I think it gave me more of a grip than most people my age. 

19.) Speaking of which, I'm 22. 

20.) My last internship was for a community resource center that taught about/demos safe alternative sexual education/self expresion concepts. That sounds like a way to lure people into the scene but it wasn't. In order to do that and really make an impact in the kink community I had to be 'out'. Since I've come out about being active in BDSM I haven't had any backlash. Nothing has really changed at all and I'm very grateful for that. I am no longer doing the internship thing but I occasionally mod two groups on FL that advertise safe events and encourages people with like interests to meet up. There are no air quotes for meet up. Contrary to what people think BDSM is not all sex. Actually, sex happens very rarely in the scene. Yeah, that surprised me too. 

21.) I like '20s, '50s, and '60s fashion. That being said, I think the 80s were crap for fashion. 

22.) I still do charcoal drawings though I have zero talent, lol. 

23.) I love pashminas. 

24.) I like to sing.

25.) I think studying the meaning of life is important to constructing your own perception of meaning.  

Konnorn

1. I'm 31 years old this year and I live in Sweden.

2. I've wanted to move to the US for a long time, but I am far too homeward bound to do something like that. I can't even live in another city than the one I grew up in without feeling terrible.

3. Due to debts and other issues, I have a really hard time finding an apartment. Because of that, I live with my mom. It works most of the time, even though we get on eachother's nerves at points.

4. My mom is my best friend and confidant. Noone understands me like she does.

5. We live in a two room apartment with three cats.

6. I am and always will be a cat person, mostly because I think dogs smell and I hate picking up their poo.

7. I have a social phobia with anxiety attacks. I've had it for as long as I can remember, but it got worse in 2009, when I studied in another town.

8. My social phobia has messed up not only my social life, but work and studies as well. In my head, I need to do things perfectly and show how good I am and never make mistakes. This results in me pushing myself too hard for a month or two, before breaking down completely.

9. I have been trying to work on my issues since 2010 and have solved most of them, but there are still issues bubbling up every now and then.

10. Another thing the social phobia messes with me is my inability to find friends in the game. I have a really hard time just walking up to people to start rp. The few times that happens are in my very good and positive days.

11. My characters always end up being very close to me personallity-wise. I can play them all differently to begin with, but sooner or later, my own personality always slips in one way or another.

12. The few ooc friends I have from the game have tried to get me to talk on Skype, but I hate talking on phones and Skype is a phone. <.<

13. I love drawing and I love photography.

14. I especially love photographing macro pics of flowers.

15. I do art commissions, not only to get a small pay for it, but to get inspiration on things to draw.

16. I don't own a nice flashy camera. Mine cost about $70, with memory card included. It works good enough for me.

17. I have very few friends. I probably have more friends through the game than I have irl. This is because I pushed a lot of my friends away when being depressed, or perhaps it's because most of them now have kids and only spend time with other people who have kids. Whichever it is, I currently have two friends who still contact me to spend time with me.

18. I envy all of those who have found their significant other through the game. It must be great to find someone who share your interest in Aetolia and understand it. Lucky bastards. :P

19. I hate riding on a bus without music. Makes me all nervous. I also have this ocd about the stop buttons. They are filthy. If I am forced to touch one, I will rub my fingers against my pants until they go numb to get the dirt off.

20. I am afraid of quite a few things, but not terrified about anything other than spiders that show up out of nowhere.

21. My mom is really easily scared, so at least once a day, I manage to scare her, willingly or not, which always makes me laugh hysterically.

22. When I get nervous, and I mean really, really nervous, I tend to curtsey. I don't know why, but I just bend my knees like a little girl and excuse myself if possible.

23. When I've got a hangover, I never want to show it. That's why I try to throw around fancy words that I would never normally use. My mom always knows when I'm hungover thanks to that.

24. I used to love drinking tequila, but due to a stomach disease, I can't drink licor anymore. I usually always stick to beer.

25. I love cooking and for some time, I wanted to be a professional chef. But after having spent time in a restaurant, I realized I couldn't take the stress. I love experimenting at home though.

Alycena

Oh why not.

1. I'm a proud Canadian. Almost to the point where I will wear a Canada flag cape on Canada day, and parade around as if it's part of my usual attire.

2. Despite living in Canada my entire life, I hate the cold. Absolutely LOATHE it. I'm a spring baby, and love everything about it! Although the snow isn't too bad, sometimes. 

3. I did not meet my significant other through Aetolia, although I have asked him to play along with me, and failed miserably. 

4. I play Aetolia as a way to escape reality. When I feel like I need a place to just be someone else, and live in a distant place I turn to Aetolia. So far it's helped keep me actually sane, for the most part. 

5. A lot of the traits I use for Aly is based off of myself in some way. Although I'm not as curious, and questionable as I try to make her seem, I'm actually quite quiet and reserved in reality. 

6. This is going to be the hardest thing to come up with 25 things about myself. 

7. I actually play Aetolia while I'm at work, as crazy as that sounds haha. Which is why Aly may seem a little off sometimes, for those who have met her. 

8. I'd like to continue my career into a path of design. I've always like art and designing something new for someone. My education is with buildings, so hopefully one day I'll be able to be an interior designer. There were even dreams of being a set designer for big name films, until I found out the working hours and decided I was too lazy to actually do that job. 

9. It seems as if I have to be told what to do in most cases. I may be in my 20s, but I feel as though I missed a huge chunk of my childhood. Some people say I'm too young and whatever, but I actually feel a lot older. Could be from the whole growing up too fast feeling that I've had since I was 12. From my early teens, I'd say I've been more mature than most people that I know. 

10. I have this wicked cough that comes around each year when the cold weather strikes, and everyone thinks I'm terribly sick and contagious. Really I'm not, it's just some awful cough that comes around to remind me 'its cold outside, don't get sick' but I don't listen and I usually end up sick. 

11. I have made some close friends through Aetolia. One of them I actually stay in contact with, although she no longer plays. I like explaining our friendship to people because it amuses me to see their faces with my story.

12. I enjoy traveling. I've been to most places across Canada, except the west coast and prairies, and many places through the states. One day I'd love to see the ancient structures in Greece and Italy, even the Glasonbury Tor in England. The next stop is parts of Asia. 

13. I'm a recent healthy eating junkie. Although I do enjoy the odd snack food here and there. 

14. I'm actually racking my brain trying to find more things about myself to write here. I'm not that great at saying things about myself on the spot. 

15. My dream car would be one that could transform. Honestly, I swapped out the logo on my current car and made it an autobot. If only it could actually turn into a robot though...

16. I love movies. Any kind of movies. Most people come to me asking for information about different types of movies, some of them I've only read previews for online, and yet I still know the answers to their questions. 

17. I love learning about history. Anything to do with what happened in ancient civilizations amuses me to no end. 

18. When I was a little girl, I always dreamed of having my own library of books. One day, I will actually have this library in my home. I know this because I will design it to be. 

19. I'm a natural born baker. Anything that needs to be baked in my house usually comes to me. I honestly don't mind, I quite enjoy it. 

20. Seeing others happiness makes me happy, which is why I usually tend to their needs before my own. 

21. A lot of the times I don't make sense with what I say. I think it's because my mind is in a jumble most of the time and I'm trying to say everything at once.

22. I like to think of myself as crafty. If it can be made by your hand then why not do it? 

23. When I want to be I can be funny. Although I do laugh at my own jokes because then I know someone is laughing at them. 

24. I like to think that I'm open to new opportunities and chances, but sometimes I find I don't like change all too much. 

25. I finally came up with 25 things about myself! WOO!!!

Zun

Valenae said:

Zun said:

1) I like the idea of this thread rapidly becoming '1 Thing About You' so I can participate without sharing.

Don't be a tool. 

Fair enough.

2) I'm Australian. Outside of talking to foreigners, I don't identify with this fact.

3) I have a hard time sharing with people. It may be because I don't see myself as more than the sum of my life. It may be because I see myself as less.

4) I have a vague foundation in Computer Science, which I am in the process of legitimizing, and growing upon. 

5) I am terrible at presenting myself, though I often wonder to what lengths I am going to just to convince myself that it's not me.

6) I went to a private Christian High School until my mother, who had accrued massive debts (on the scale of a pleasant house in the outer 'burbs) could no longer afford to pay the tuition.

7) At this institution, and subsequent others, I went through the process of being bullied. I like to think that, despite it all, I don't victimize myself any more. I'm somewhat proud of that.

8) I have three little siblings, two of which are twins, one of which is autistic. I struggle with how this defines him as a little person, and I struggle with how life will treat him. I could see no more positive a trait in a person than the ability to look at somebody different and identify with them, and give them the time of day. I do my best to make sure he knows he is loved.

9) I have an older sister who did nothing to raise me; I like to pretend that she did. One night sticks out: my mother had broken up with our step-dad, and was in the process of going through flings. She was doing so across from my bedroom. She isn't a terrible person. She is simply a person. And that I fled to my sister's room, hid in her bed, on hearing animal sounds, is not condemning her. I regret not understanding that at the time. I fondly remember my sister soothing me to sleep.

10) I have a father, like some and unlike others, who saw me on the school holidays. He read to me in a warm bed that smelt like cigarette smoke. It was a den of cheap carpet and Nintendo video-games.

11) I had some wild teenage years by many respect; they did not leave me prepared for real life.

12) I have scavenged, begged and debased myself for substances I'd rather not discuss. I get pangs of disgust remembering how I treated myself, and how others treated me, and I treated them.

13) And that being said, I don't trust people.

14) My greatest fantasy is being a genius in a toddler's body. I am addicted to the idea of being remarkable. I know, truthfully, I am not.

15)  I am 21.

16) - in my opinion, part of this has to do with a two year gap after my substance abuse and before my further education. In my head, at the time, I had self-diagnosed agoraphobia. I think, now, that I was afraid of change.

17) My first girlfriend cheated on me- I'm constantly surprised when others don't follow suit.

18) I wake up every morning, go to the mirror, and tell myself that I'm alright. On some days, it works. I wonder how the results would stand up under scientific control.

19) A turning point in my life was failing to get a scholarship to the most prestigious school in Melbourne. I failed on one portion of the exam, creative writing.

20) I work as a Court Monitor in the Supreme and County Courts of Victoria. I am tangentially involved in the legal system; the highlight of my job is hearing interesting cases. On the bad days, I pour myself a whiskey and say it's because all the information I was forced to hear was horrible. A part of me thinks I drink because it didn't really affect me at all.

21) I think these threads are asinine. I didn't read the others, I'll be surprised if somebody reads mine. I don't want a detached list of facts of somebody I'll never speak to; I want to feel connected. Except Karl's, I read his, in fact I got to know him briefly a few years ago. He's a fantastic person.

22) And on that note, I'm enraged by my inability to treat connections with equitable emotion.

23) I chew through friends for various reasons- whether it be through inappropriate relationships, or a lack of fitting in. And I don't make them fast enough to balance it all out. I'm left with an iPhone full of mistakes.

24) I'm entirely, utterly selfish.

25) ...

Daingean

Zun said:

21) I think these threads are asinine. I didn't read the others, I'll be surprised if somebody reads mine. I don't want a detached list of facts of somebody I'll never speak to; I want to feel connected. Except Karl's, I read his, in fact I got to know him briefly a few years ago. He's a fantastic person.

"> :>

Meyvitch

Ok, Ok, I missed the 25 things part. I'll start over.

1.) I like scifi/fantasy books and dragons. My favorite series are the Dragonriders of Pern, Novik's Temeraire series (Napoleon w/ dragons!!), The Hobbit, and The Talisman by Stephen King.

2.) I live in Maine.

3.) I moved from NH in May '12 for work. The longest job I've had was 8 months. A lot of what I've done since college is volunteer/temp in between jobs. So far I'm 2 &1/2 months into my new job, and my goal is at least a year to get funds for going back to school.

4.) I haven't been on a date in 5 years.

5.) I'm not particularly church-going, but there's this one in West Newbury VT that I like best. Great people. It's 3-4 hours away now. :-(

6.) I like vanilla ice cream. Chocolate doesn't taste like chocolate.

7.) That said, I bought 2 pounds of chocolate truffles at Lindt in freeport, and it's taking all my willpower to keep it set aside for my sister for Christmas, because I'm determined to give her SOMEthing fun as all she asked for was gas cards for Christmas.

8.) Doctor Who fan right here. I still think they should bring John Barrowman back to the show sometime. Or do another season of Torchwood, Miracle Day was suprisingly good.

9.) I like dark chocolate, a lot.

10.) I have been driving the same car for more than 10 years.

11.) I've tried many beers and some liquor but I can't aquire a taste for anything except Malibu coconut rum.

12.) I've been to Japan, but I was too self-conscious of being an American in a foreign country and how badly we can be as tourists that I didn't have as much fun as I could've. It was a school trip, for fine arts credits. Totally worth the expense.

13.) I get lost easily.

14.) My roommate in college used to say she wanted to get me a monkey backpack one sees on toddlers because I was prone to wandering off. I have ADD, and I get curious! So I paid her back with a monkey backpack for the little girl she's going to have in 1 month. I think she and her husband would have been disappointed if I didn't!

15.) I started playing D&D again for the first attempt to do so in 9 years, because it's the only time I get to see my friends up here, because of varying people on call and me working weekends.

16.) I have a writing degree. I want to go back to school to get some sort of technical background to apply it to as a technical writer.

17.) I once grossed out my poetry class in college by writing a poem about Eurysicthon, the guy who pissed off a god and was cursed with hunger. He ate everything in sight and then wound up eating himself to death. Literally. I wrote a poem about it and for fun posted it in Aetolia.

18.) I like to TRY to scare the shit out of little kids on Halloween with my stuffed owl puppet, Poe. He can turn his head and blink. I get so many "Cool! Mom, look, an owl!" from little kids instead. I guess Poe likes the accolades more than being scary. 

19.) Hands down, my favorite Christmas movies are now Rudolph and Gift of the Night Fury. (How to train your dragon spinoff. I liked that movie so much I've been keeping up with the kids show.

20.) I like kids programming sometimes. I watched Yugioh for years, and still think season 4 was the best one. Also still watch Pokemon after 16 years. Growing up, Pokemon was the only way my sister and I could be around each other without biting the other one's head off.

21.) I'm a dork and play Aetolia? I'm in good company.

22.) I've only recently gotten into coffee, but can't find a flavor I like besides french vanilla from the coffee machine at work. Oddly delicious.

23.) I prefer to drink milk more than anything else. I can't stand skim milk.

24.) One of my "things before I die" wishes is to go back to Mitaka, Japan to check out the Ghibili museum again. Pictures aren't allowed to be taken inside and I missed the giant on the roof before it got dark. I got Totoro though!

25.) Uhhh...I know squat about cars.

Lin

1) My name is Brendon Hollesen. I'm a plain, white fellow of vague, Central European descent, primarily Austrian. 26 years old.

2) I live in Colorado with a girl I met on Aetolia. We were an item for almost eight years, before we broke it off.

3) Said break-up's had a pretty nasty effect on me, and right now I don't consider myself to be especially fun to be around. I probably come off as bipolar.

Zun said:

10) I have a father, like some and unlike others, who saw me on the school holidays. He read to me in a warm bed that smelt like cigarette smoke. It was a den of cheap carpet and Nintendo video-games.

4) Oh god, dat feel. My father was a constant presence before I moved out, but my most fond memory of him was him waking me up when I was four years old, inviting me to reach back into his ridiculous, outdated denim jacket; I felt something plastic, and pulled out a Legend of Zelda miniature, a little scene of a dungeon in cross-section, with Link trying to avoid one of those sliding spike traps (mine was the centermost "trophy"). If I still had that thing, I could sell it for a few hundred dollars.

5) In light of item #3, and thanks to Colorado's legalization of cannabis, I've taken up recreational pot smoking in place of drinking. It's not healthy, but it's a lot healthier, I don't get furious for no reason, there are no hang overs, and it makes my music really good. I'm dry right now and it makes me sad.

6) My favorite book of all time is Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. I've read it either fifteen or sixteen times, and I'm working on the next read-through right now. Because of it, I have a weakness for bildungsroman tales.

7) My second favorite book is John Varley's Steel Beach, which may or may not have influenced my gender identity.

8) I think of myself as gender fluid, and I feel that I have a more female than male mindset. If, like in Steel Beach, I could visit some magical space-age salon and get a sex change without looking strong-jawed and awkward, I'd probably do it in a heartbeat.

9) I have a cat, named Roland. Specifically, his name is Roland, the Littlest Gunslinger. I like to cuddle him and squeeze him within an inch of his life, while saying things to cut down on his self-esteem. Usually I tell him that he's a lovable little fatass, and that one day I'm going to make sausage out of him and eat him with eggs. He is plump as hell, and he likes to sit as high on my chest as he can, shoving his nose into my face.

10) I am an artist of some experience, and my current passion is breaking into 3D modeling. I've been flitting back and forth between various programs for this purpose, but I think I've finally settled on Blender. I'm really, really bad at it right now, so I'm practicing by converting a Blood Elf (from WoW) into Lin.

11) I feel relentlessly self-confident about myself, and I think I'm a pretty attractive guy, but certain people can dash away that confidence without even trying. For everyone else, though, I like to think I'm a bit of a social dynamo.

12) I really hate that all of my peers have gotten heavily into social justice and slacktivism. It's become suddenly fashionable to talk about "problematic" things. If I might be a complete jerk-off for a moment, I think it's a pretty immature attitude to take on that the world offends you, so it needs to change around you. Where I'm from, we shake our head at the nonsense and simply shun offensive company.

13) I'm working on Aetolia's Wiki mostly by myself. I don't really intend to stop, since I'm obsessed with wikis and I rarely get bored.

14) I don't trust anyone else with what are usually considered group projects. Even if the task is massive and overwhelming, I like to go it alone, because I need total creative control.

15) That said, people who show a bit of true, creative brilliance earn my trust almost immediately, and I love working with them. I'm enough of an egotist, however, that I don't see this quality where I should.

16) I'm not terrified of getting old like most of the people my age, but I alternate between wanting to "embrace my youth", live like a rebel, chop my hair into some outlandish, punky cut and dye it neon blue, or suddenly decide I'm a classy gent and wear suits on even the most casual outings.

17) I love strange, psychedelic rap music. Take Speak's Framboise Menage a Trois, or Aesop Rock's Crows 01. I need the rhythm and repetitive-but-stylized structure of hip-hop to keep me in an artistic mindset, and I think the medium itself has endless room for expression and artistic experimentation.

18) I'm working on a project called Three Libras, a sort of JRPG-style computer game with a lot of trippy music and my own artwork. I was going on about it for a while on my Tumblr, but I've since then stopped talking about it, because when I share my projects before their completion, I subconsciously feel satisfied enough with my work that I no longer do it.

19) Lin was my attempt to get into the head of a female character, and although I didn't value it as much then, I enjoy playing her now, because living in that mindset helps me ventilate a lot of feelings that I can't really express right now.

20) She's an Azudim now, and her design has taken some rather freaky directions, but I consider beastly, silly Yeleni!Lin to be canonical, and I still draw her that way.

21) I bought a really great webcam on the cheap, and haven't found enough uses for it. So excuse me if I whore myself out for conversation on Skype.

22) I hate the cold on what I have decided can only be a psychological level. It drains me and makes my muscles non-functional, and I can only guess, based on how everyone else enduring the same weather seems just fine, that I must have been bitten by winter as a child or something. I'm looking outside right now, where we have a low-grade blizzard blowing, and feeling terrified.

23) I would live like a forestal in a heartbeat. I've already got it planned out: there are great swathes of woods in Texas that are privately owned but never used - just land held by local residents so that it won't be paved over or used for oil drilling. The weather in these regions is beautiful, and it's easily a few square miles of countryside. I would live in a treehouse and hunt boars, rabbit and deer.

24) I wrote 75 room descriptions in an hour and a half. Real, decent descriptions, not just some half-assed nonsense.

25) If I don't brag about myself here, I'll never give myself a compliment elsewhere.

Orisae

This is going to be hella personal but I don't mind, so much.

 

1. My name is Thérèse and I love my name. I was named after the saint known as the Little Flower who died at a young age after a short life of doing little deeds and acts of kindness. Supposedly, it rained rose petals when she died. I love that, too.

2. I am twenty-six but sometimes feel like I should be older considering all the stuff that I went through. However, I like to tell most people that I'm twenty-two. I'm kind of afraid of getting older.

3. I have a well-meaning pair of parents that tried to get me to pass in life even with the issues that I had as a child. If anyone has ever seen the movie, Heavenly Creatures, I was something like Juliet. I had a morbid fascination with dramatics, serial killers, and pretended that I lived in a fantasy world. I feel awful that I didn't realize, back then, how much that hurt and worried my parents but I know that it was because I was so unhappy.

4. Because of the above issue, I spent the entirety of childhood on different prescriptions and going to different councilors. Because of my need for dramatics, I fed into all this attention and the warnings until I really became legit afraid of what 'creature' I was like when I was off everything.

5. I went cold turkey when I was 18 and basically had to relearn what I was like when not medicated since it was like meeting a new person. Suddenly, I had social tact and was aware of my surroundings. The most wonderful memory that I have, post all that nonsense, was my sister asking me 'when did you become so happy?'. She now looks up to me whenever she needs a better outlook on life.

6. I am afraid of committment but that's slowly going away as the need to settle and have children grows.

 

TO BE CONTINUES...

Rho

1) My name is Derek - I live in Pennsylvania, where it is cold way too often for my liking.

2) I'm currently 21, not going to school and have a job in retail. I sell things for your home and lingerie, it's a really weird mix of customer base.

3) I am addicted to Aetolia, in the simplest way I can say it. I go through phases where I either have the desire to play Aetolia all the time or I find myself absolutely bored.

4) In relation to #3, almost every morning when I wake up, I check my Aetolia messages and the forums on my phone while still in bed. I am usually met with some form of decay message, which had gotten my hopes up for something interesting.

5) I basically raised myself since I was twelve. My mom had a lot of medical problems and they think the medicines she was on reacted badly together, and now she lives in a nursing home in Florida.

6) To latch onto the father things above, I don't think my dad was terrible, but he is an absolutely shit parent, after having lived with my brother and seen how he was to his kids. I don't fault him, because he went through a lot with my mom,

7) All that said, I think I got really lucky with my adolescent/maturing years. I had a pretty good group of friends, and being online all the time helped to find people that I could relate to in various ways.

8) I don't drink, smoke or do any form of drug. This is one of the proudest things I can say, as both my parents smoked, my dad was an alcoholic until I was born, and he did cocaine for a while when I was growing up. I'll gladly take my Aetolia addiction any day.

9) I can be lazy and procrastinate with the best of 'em. This leads me to having great, wonderful ideas and pretty decent starts on them, but no drive to see them completed. I'd say this is one of my biggest flaws.

10) Before Rho, every character I had played was male.

11) To go off of #10, I don't think I do a bad job of playing a female character. Honestly, I've come to a point where I think playing a female is easier than playing a male.

12) I can't stand silence. I would much rather listen to music that is so low you can barely hear it than be playing Aetolia/driving/etc in silence.

13) I want to explore the world and mingle with any culture that I find my way to, if only to say I've done it. I have a special place on my list of places to see for France, because I loved learning the language and would definitely want to pick it back up.

14) I've gotten to a point where I am thankful for the friends that I have. I can be a bit of a recluse at times, because I'll have more fun playing Aetolia than I will going out to someone's house and chilling.

15) I don't talk to a lot of people from Aetolia OOCly, and I can't really give you a great reason why. I think I'm a good guy to talk to, but I can never really fit in with most of the groups that Aetolia has. It's been this way since I started playing about three years back. I don't mind this as much as I used to.

16) I've noticed that my roleplay style has shifted with each character I've had. It may just be me getting older or the groups that I've gone through, but there is definite change. I'm not sure if it's been for better or worse.

17) I like the challenge of bashing a character up to 99, which is why I currently have three of them. I am utterly bored with +100 bashing.

18) I currently drive a small suv that gets approx. 12 miles to the gallon. I am so grateful my job is four miles down the highway.

19) I have one niece and three nephews, all of which call me simply 'Uncle'. They're all under five. I love them more than I can describe. They were the light I needed when a girl I loved passed away. I can't wait to go see them again.

20) I compare myself to those around me and base my achievements and failures on theirs. This often leads to me having pretty shitty self esteem. Luckily, I have come to realize that I am just as good in other ways, if only because friends have beaten it into my head.

21) I have really terrible memory in general. Sometimes I wish I could take out a few years of things to open more space for things that I -want- to remember.

22) If I find a song I like, that fits the mood I'm in, I can listen to it and versions of it for hours on end. Right now, that song is...[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

23) Rho has 6 crafting skills and I am one of the least creative people you will find when it comes to that sort of thing. I struggle with my designs because I definitely don't have that sort of a mindset. This is in my opinion. I've had people tell me I am more than creative enough and just need to put more effort in. See #9.

24) A lot of my points here have been Aetolia related because I think I am a pretty boring white guy in real life. I live with my father, not by choice, and my dog, Bandit. He is a Beagle/Chihuahua mix and he sleeps with me pretty much every night, under the covers.

25) I love magic. Not the wave-your-wand Harry Potter type, but the stage magician sort. I like that feeling of being amazed at whatever has happened, but more then that, I like trying to figure out how something was done. This has led me to watching the same trick quite a few times in one sitting just to see certain things I've had thoughts about.

Amara

Alright. I wrote this for very specific people who requested it, so please just pass on through if you're not one of them. I feel derptacular right now.

1. My name is Michelle Marie. I'm named after my mother and a Beatles song because I'm old enough that my parents were hippy-trippy when the run-up to my birth came along.

2. I came to Aetolia to get away from another mud, a pk-centric one called Avalon, that I have known Moirean, Malak, Illinian and probably several others of you from. It made me a bad, angry person while I played and that's not much fun. Despite that, I tend to wander back in once every year or two and wallow around in the grief and angst until I wake up again and flee.

3. I live in rural northeastern Nevada in a tiny town whose population is between one-hundred fifty and two-hundred fifty people, depending upon if you count the 'transient' miners who live here for various duration throughout the year. This town is fifty miles from the nearest grocery store, and sixty-five miles from the nearest REAL city with actual amenities and things to do. One way. I live fifty-four miles from my children's school. Also one way.

4. I was born to a pair of bikers who had various drug and alcohol problems both at the time and after the time of my birth. My mother chose to keep to that lifestyle but my father, also a Vietnam veteran with some pretty heavy duty physical and emotional damage from said war, left his club to settle down and raise me in southern California. My mother remained with hers until the day she died.

5. My birth mother was a reservation Blackfoot Indian.

6. I skipped several grades in elementary school, through dint of attending mostly religious and private schools. In high school, they didn't want me there any longer than I had to be, and, sharing that sentiment, I doubled up on my credit loads every semester through a deal with the superintendent and local community college, which allowed me to graduate at fourteen.

7. My parents threw me out at fourteen, as well, after my first semester of college. I lived at school.

8. I got married at sixteen, to a very bad man whom I left at twenty-one but whom had the decency or luck to give me three beautiful children. I have a fourth child with the man who helped me save myself from my ex-husband, and together, these children have both saved my life and gave it an extraordinary amount of meaning.

9. I was a Nirvana groupie in the early nineties. More parties than sex and still a very interesting time of my life I'm kind of grateful I got to have.

10. I got my first degrees at eighteen, in music education, music performance and international relations. I have -never-, -ever- used them for -anything- that I am aware of, having mostly stayed in school to have a place to live while too young to enter into a legal contract.

11. I stripped for eight years, to leave my husband and to put myself through law school, which I had to petition the California State Bar Association to enter because I did not have a proper pre-law path of education. I won entry.

12. My kids and I lived in a housing project during this time and I contributed to the household through programming and designing front- and back- ends for porn sites. This allowed me the luxury and enjoyment of attending all the major conventions and trade shows, such as the AVN Awards, InterNext, Erotica LA and such in places like Las Vegas and Los Angeles without having to spend one thin dime of my own money and which has given me such memories as eating sushi off naked Asian women and allowing Ron Jeremy to sign my breasts. They were -barely- big enough for his scrawl. The party of the rockstar pornstars was indeed endless and debauched and SO. MUCH. FUN.

13. My boyfriend at the time broke his back at work, which pushed me OUT of law school before I could get my Juris Doctorate. California, however, is one of SEVEN states in this country that allow prospective lawyers to apprentice to practicing attorneys of proper status in lieu of attending law school. I flooded every attorney I could find in the Bar Association listings with my resume and a letter asking politely to be allowed to apprentice. One in Lake Arrowhead chose to take a chance on me and as such, I was able to reach my goal. I also took my boyfriend's case from HIS attorney and won him over fifty-thousand dollars, plus assorted benefits, as my first case ever.

14. I couldn't enter into practicing criminal law because the idea of letting a guilty defendant go free or putting an innocent one behind bars was something I couldn't deal with. I literally could not choose a side and live with the idea that at some point, I was going to make such a huge mistake that somebody else would pay for. I still entertain the thought of working for The Innocence Project, but being so far out in the sticks kind of cripples me. Maybe someday.

15. I have only put my legal education to work as an advocate, and I mainly get paid in barter and grants I write that sometimes receive approval and sometimes don't. Recent cases have included that of a sixty-something year old woman that one of our amazing sheriff's deputies broadsided because he was looking at his radio and that of a twenty-something year old woman with a sixth grade education who had the joy of marrying a drug-addicted son of an ex-sheriff and whose daughter was kidnapped from her by the grandparents and who could not get any lawyer in Nevada to represent her. I've also dealt with countless eviction, adoption, custodial, and mental health cases that leave me exhilarated or sobbing. I usually get paid in fresh raw milk, chicken, eggs, homemade clothing or blankets, plant cuttings, baby livestock, whatever people have on-hand. I only let them pay me because refusing will wound their pride, and in some cases, that's all they really have.

16. I own my property outright, paying six-thousand dollars cash for it, and we built every building and improvement on it with our own hands, as a family. We dug and installed our own water line and septic system. We raised our own electrical pole. We built two large bungalow-style buildings and gutted/refurbished a trailer to use as a kitchen/living room/bathroom/computer room.

17. I was a member of our Town Advisory Board for roughly six months until I got fired for losing my temper and telling 'an esteemed member of the press' to sit the eff down and shut the eff up when the grown-ups were talking. The job was amazingly frustrating, and revealed to me just how much corruption and idiocy reigns in rural, out of the way places like this.

18. I was diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder when I was in my mid-twenties, after a short trip to the county mental hospital. Fun. I am hypermanic, which means I'm on a high most of the time, a lovely, euhporic type of high that makes me think I can do anything I want to and fix the world for everybody stuck in it. I rapid-cycle, which means I crash at least three to four times a year, during which times I basically crawl back under my rock to isolate myself from everybody while I wallow in fatalism and anxiety. I embrace the illness, I feel like it's why I am who I am and capable of what I have done so far and will do in the future and I feel like this attitude has helped me raise my children with a certain empathy that maybe they wouldn't have if they hadn't lived through this with me.

19. I met a significant other here in Aetolia a few years back, which led to a whirlwind relationship of epic drama and eventual cohabitation. The violent and exhausting breakup led to me quitting for quite a long time, and to my current skittishness in interacting with new people. In fact it took several attempts to 'return' before I was able to stick with it for more than a month. Despite this, I'm still apparently able to entertain the idea of meeting an S/O here, because well... yeah, I still can crush. Hard.

20. I work out a lot of my own real life and personality issues through my character, whom I identify with -way- too much. I've found that I can't set aside my real life morals and expectations to play a functionally 'evil' or 'amoral' character so even my darksiders are gray at best.

21. I have an amazing aversion to religion which also bleeds into my Aetolia-ing. Most of my family are various forms of Christian, from Catholic to Evangelical to Pentacostal and there's a permanent and sometimes entertaining mini-jihad within our ranks because everybody thinks everybody else is going to Hell. I consider myself an atheist, though I believe in and support being 'spiritual' in that I simply cannot accept we exist for nothing and that nothing greater is being served or will ever come of humanity, but even in games like Aetolia the gods freak me the heck out and I kind of scurry around hoping they don't notice me.

22. The best friend I ever had in my life died about six years ago this week and I still have a voice mail from her on a cellphone account I only keep active to keep this voice mail accessible on. I miss you, Audrey.

23. Three of my ex boyfriends from forever ago have popped up on various social media sites in the past month, to re-establish contact with me. This has pleased me to no end.

24. The people I've met in Aetolia, even the ones that have turned out to be utter and complete @ssholes, are some of the most intelligent, creative, interesting people I think I've ever met in my life and I feel positively boring and faded next to most of them. Artists, writers, actors, programmers, students, healthcare workers, farmers, you name it; from literally -everywhere-, doing a little bit of -everything-, I'm amazed and thankful I've gotten to become as much a part of this community as I've been allowed to become. I don't -like- to be part of a group, but this one... yes, keepers.

25. I feel really stupid for writing this and expect to be made fun of and trolled. I only did it because, surprisingly, several people asked me to and the one who convinced me actually managed to based off the idea that I don't share myself very well and that this might be a therapeutic exercise. So. Here you go.

Arbre

People don't typically troll in these.

Valenae

Amara said:

24. The people I've met in Aetolia, even the ones that have turned out to be utter and complete @ssholes, are some of the most intelligent, creative, interesting people I think I've ever met in my life and I feel positively boring and faded next to most of them. Artists, writers, actors, programmers, students, healthcare workers, farmers, you name it; from literally -everywhere-, doing a little bit of -everything-, I'm amazed and thankful I've gotten to become as much a part of this community as I've been allowed to become. I don't -like- to be part of a group, but this one... yes, keepers.

25. I feel really stupid for writing this and expect to be made fun of and trolled. I only did it because, surprisingly, several people asked me to and the one who convinced me actually managed to based off the idea that I don't share myself very well and that this might be a therapeutic exercise. So. Here you go.

It surprises me how far Aetolian rp has come in the last three or so years and how much the people have changed with it. 

As for feeling stupid - don't. Your 25 was fun to read. 

Elanth

1.) My name is Patrick. 23. Male. White, with German, Irish, British, and Jewish ancestry.

2.) I live in California, I have all my life, and I love it here. It's either here or one of the Greek islands for where I eventually opt to settle down - and I do eventually want to settle down, get married, have a family of one kind or another. It may not be a conventional kind of family, owing to my pansexuality, but it's still what I want.

3.) I'm remarkably introverted, and even without depression (which has, until recently, been more or less constant), I don't have a lot of energy; when it comes to obligations, I tend to schedule lots of time around them so I don't overload myself. This tends to inspire feelings of inadequacy in me because I feel like I should be able to take on more.

4.) Did I mention I'm an incredible violin player? And a composer? I've played music for seventeen years and I made it through four semesters of theory, almost completing a music degree before I decided to go into computer science for money.

5.) I still live with my folks. If the tour I'm going on with this band in late February works out, however, it is my full intention to move out and find a place of my own. I personally can't wait for that to happen, in spite of loving my parents to death.

6.) Last Monday I was in a rather horrible car crash; the near-death experience seems to have had a double whammy of relieving the depression I've lived with over the past decade, and getting me to finally pull some of my shit together. I emerged physically unharmed, although the van I was in was totaled. No one else got hurt, and property damage was thankfully minimal.

7.) I've decided not to actually play Aetolia anymore, and I'm feeling super good about that decision, although I like a lot of you and I'm going to stay involved with the community.

8.) I've been to California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Washington, D.C., Canada (Vancouver, Toronto), Mexico (a stopover on a cruise), Greece (Athens and the island of Hydra), and I want to go to even more places. I love traveling and how it shakes me out of my mindset.

9.) I don't have a steady job, and I've never managed to swing one; my money is sporadic and comes from playing music gigs and doing musical arrangement and transcribing work. I've been building up my artistic reputation and it's starting to pay off.

10.) I really, really like writing, too, which is probably rather obvious to anyone who's encountered me in-game, but I think it bears mentioning. I'm working on a novel right now.

11.) I've never done any illicit drugs, and I've stayed largely free of a caffeine addiction; my sole vices are alcohol and chocolate.

12.) I've been in community college but school and I don't get along. I'm skipping the next semester to do a tour with the aforementioned band, and I feel like I might have taken a break anyway if that hadn't come up; I just do really badly at focusing on my education.

13.) All of my significant relationships have taken place online. I've gotten to the point where I'm not ashamed of that and I consider it perfectly valid, although it obviously comes with a (rather huge) set of issues.

14.) Terry Pratchett's books. Not just Discworld, but almost everything he's ever written - these are my favorite books, and some of my formative influences not only as a writer, but as a person. I also deeply appreciate Neil Gaiman's work, and I view both of them as perfect, stellar examples of what fantasy writing can and should be.

15.) I went through several years of psychotherapy to help with my depression, and it ended up helping me fix or mitigate most of my issues except the depression. I used to be deeply uncomfortable discussing this fact, which leads me to...

16.) ...the hideous insecurity that I still battle on a near-daily basis. I used to have elaborate defense mechanisms to prop myself up, and even now I'm given to an occasional flaunting of the ego. This, however, is mostly done in jest and not in any kind of seriousness, and I'm getting better about my confidence and voicing my opinions and pursuing my desires.

17.) I've worked hard to develop social skills and communication and I feel like it's finally starting to pay off for me and for the people around me. I'm very, very good at breaking interpersonal things down with people, although I've never been especially fond of small talk. Not many introverts are, granted.

18.) Without this game, I would have no one to talk to on a daily basis. All of the real people I know are acquaintances; I'm very picky and choosy about the people I let in, sometimes to a rather exacting degree.

19.) I'm adopted. My birthdad was my adoptive mom's first husband, and before that, my adoptive mom was a nun. The family history and the family tree is a huge, convoluted sort of mess, the full details of which I don't intend to discuss here, but I'm here to confirm that adoption works just fine.

20.) I like immersive games, immersive stories, immersive media. Anything that can take me out of myself and my critical mindset is fine in my book; I am not especially an elitist, and I am perfectly capable of enjoying stuff that lots of other people view as stupid and lowbrow in spite of enjoying critical thought.

21.) I have perfect pitch, and a comprehensive understanding of music theory. This means I no longer love music the way I used to, because I can't passively listen to most music in the background; I automatically start taking it apart and dissecting it in my head. For this reason, when I want background music, I listen to things like jazz, or rap; things that don't have pitches to analyze, or have so many pitches and such convoluted chord structures that I don't have the capacity to break them apart as I'm listening to them. Yes, I do this passively. Yes, it's like a superpower. No, I can't turn it off. I didn't know it was something other people couldn't do until I was eleven or twelve. I've only ever met two other people with perfect pitch. For the uninitiated, it means I can tell what note I'm hearing without outside reference. I can tell you what pitch a car horn is (most of them center around B flat), or a European car alarm (two pitches, G# and A, a semitone away, alternating with C and C# - creating a clear, dissonant contrast that serves to alert people nearby to the problem).

22.) I know quite a bit of random trivia, and most of my knowledge doesn't come from formal education, but just from people giving me things to read and my subsequent efforts to fact-check them and find out the accompanying context. This, just as much as procrastination and laziness, is what hampers my forays into higher education.

23.) Oh, I should mention I was homeschooled until I reached the age of eighteen and went into community college. My 'school' - which was a token framework set up by my parents, and otherwise a freely-directed learning environment where only a few core things were taught to me by them - issued me a diploma so the community college would recognize that I had earned a degree and graduated. Sad to say, I fit most of the cliches that people have about homeschoolers, but there are plenty of homeschoolers that don't. I am by no means a representative example.

24.) I sometimes envy the ability of religious people to have that kind of faith. I've always been too critical, too doubtful, too in need of certainty to blindly trust like that, and I value happiness over pretty much everything else because I spent about a decade being unhappy. Severe depression more or less defined my adolescent years, as did a string of funerals from people close to me dying. I had to help clean out two houses that belonged to people I had known, and both of them were complete packrats to a greater or lesser extent. I wouldn't want to be a teenager again if you paid me.

25.) I have a hard time believing it when people give me compliments, or tell me good things about myself.

Aarbrok

1. My name is Ron, its plain and boring, nothing really exciting about my name.

2. I am 29 years old, going on 15, I tend to not act my age, life is too short, keep the serious aspect in your professional life, not in your pleasure.

3.  I am a Cashew, my Mothers side of my family is Catholic, my Fathers side Jewish.  My grandmother always just said I was an abomination.

4.  My Ancestry is predominately Norwegian and Irish, on one side, the other side is German and Turkish, I avoided the ginger genes, my brothers and sisters got stuck wtih them!.

5. I am gay, although I dont usually act like I am.  It is hard to tell most the time being that I grew up in the country, hunting and fishing, and working on muscle cars with my brothers, that being said I am a proud gaymer, and enjoy whoring achievements as much as I like some good deer jerky.

6.  I can be your best friend or your worst enemy, I believe people should be treated well and respected unless given reason otherwise, I find that there is too much hate and ignorance in this world, and I will not be shy to put people in their place if they are being ignorant.  Not that I am always right, but I am usually right.

7.  I have a degree in biology that I do not use, I am absolutely fascinated with how living things work, I should really get to applying that but I just cant be bothered, it doesn't seem good enough in my quest to be a perpetual student.  I thought I wanted to be a teacher with that degree, now I think I want to be a chef...yeah I am indecisive.

8.  I currently work as a tailor at a high end department store selling designer suits to douch-ey bros who have no clue about fashion, and would rather spill jagerbombs on an armani suit while riding on a party bus.

9.  I am the oldest of six siblings, and likely the most attractive.

10.  I come off to most people as arrogant or snotty due to the tone of my voice, I really cant change it, I am nasally and droning when I speak sometimes, Either that or my voice is deep and overpowering. When you get to know me though, you realize I am a big teddy bear.

11.  I worked as an investment banker for 7 years for a leading california bank until my credit went to shit alongside the economy, having alot of money at a young age makes for having no money at an older age.

12. I enjoy reading tarot cards in my spare time, its a strange hobby/fascination of mine.

13.  I only go to naturopathic doctors, because the pharmaceutical companies freak me out and I am allergic to alot of traditional medications, I absolutely love acupuncture and healing massage, enough so I learned how to do massage therapy, and took tai chi classes to balance my body when I was really sick.

14. I love to cook, I cannot bake worth a damn, but I can make enoguh food to feed a small army, and I will guarantee at least a stick of butter and rib sticking soul food goodness in my creations, I am such a southern housewife sometimes.

15. I have a collection of D&D dice, I like them in different colors and I give them names, I do the same thing with the blown glass art my brother makes me, yeah I have a brother that blows glass, its kinda awesome...even if he is a ginger.

16.  I love nerdy tattoos, Nerdy guys, well basically if you like good food, and gaming that is the way to my heart, tattoos are a bonus PS, my boyfriend can attest, he is definately worth all of this, plus how can a Phoenix tattoo not be sexy, I think we both want to get matching Power Rangers tattoos next. ^_^

17.  I am an ordained Minister and allowed to perform weddings in the States of Washington, Oregon, and California, I have performed four weddings to date.  IRL Kufi of Sacraments bitch!

18. In said weddings I was typically drunk, and tried to kiss the groom in one of them.  He was hot, and I wanted to get a little sugah for momma!

19.  I sang in choir for most of my childhood, if I actually try I can belt out a good song still, however in my youth I was very timid, told that I was too quiet and went through years of voice lessons teaching me how to use my diaphragm and project my voice, I think now people wish I would have never done that, I am very loud vocally all the time, and I cannot sing without projecting as though there are acoustics and a crowd to listen

20.  In High school I was a cheerleader and I was in wrestling, I think back and realize, how in the hell did people not know I was gay.  I came out when I was 21 years old, breaking up with a long time girlfriend.  We are still good friends, she is married now and has three beautiful children who call me Uncle Ron

21. I am charitable to a fault, I will give the last of my money to a cause.  I work in various fundraisers and non profit events throughout the year.

22. I am a partner in my own clothing company that creates screenprinting, accessories and jewellery and most of my proceeds go directly to Oncology Research

23. I go to comic con yearly, if you are ever in San Diego for the Event, come hit me up, I have lived here for the past 10 years, and I doubt I will ever be leaving, I love this City, Well I might leave, my boyfriend wants me on the east coast.  No I did not meet him on Aetolia.  I met him in World of Warcraft lol.

24.  I am from Portland Oregon, born and raised, I think Portlandia is a stupid show, I have never put a bird on anything.  

25. Sassy gay jesus....that is all

Periluna

1. My name is Mary, but no - I wasn't named after anyone in the Bible. Instead my mother decided to name me after a prostitute she had been friends with but who no longer lives after her husband found out she was a prostitute.

2. I have lived in the same area most of my life. Same state (North Carolina) my entire life. I hate it here. I would love to move but have no idea where I would go.

3. I have a wonderful man in my life. Tells me he loves me everyday and gives the sweetest kisses. He calls me Mommy. His name is Kaidyn James and he's 4 years old. He saved my life.

4. I say that he saved my life because of all the drugs I was on and off prior to conception. Luckily, I was on my 'off' stage when I conceived him and I have remained off for the last five years. I don't even feel a need for any of it and I honestly don't see why I did in the first place.

5. I was raised by my great-aunt and uncle from the time I was 7 years old and lived with them until they kicked me out at 19 because they didn't like my boyfriend (my son's father).

6. I dated said boyfriend and was even engaged to him for a year before leaving him because he refused to give up drugs. I didn't want that lifestyle for my son. He passed away this past March. I miss him and sometimes feel like I could have done something to prevent his death. Surprisingly, there weren't any drugs in his system when he passed. He was murdered and I have no clue how I will approach it with Kaidyn when he's older.

7. I work in a grocery store as a Bookkeeper/Customer Service/whateverelsetheywantmetodo. I'm suppose to be put onto full-time SoonTM. 

8. I have a degree in Broadcast Productions and Technologies. I put in applications constantly. Starting to rethink my career options, but it's what I really want to do.

9. I took ballet for 10 years and danced with a pre-professional civic dance company. Also trained at NC School of the Arts, NC Dance Theater, Charlotte City Ballet, and Hawaii State Ballet.

10. My last week in Hawaii was spent at the hospital. I had E-Coli and Salmonella food poisoning. They didn't think I was going to live. HA!

11. Despite my life, or maybe because of it, I am a genuinely happy person.

12. I'm afraid of heights but I would -love- to go parachuting and/or bungee jumping one day.

13. My first MUD was First Age of Avalon. It's dead now, and most people moved over (or back) to Avalon (Legends). I moved to Aetolia and seem much happier for it.

14. Everyone I've talked to OOCly seems to think Milian and I are married IRL. We aren't. FYI

15. Oh! I'm 25 years old, but everyone says I look 12. My ID usually gets studied VERY carefully.

16. I hate people that don't think for themselves. There are several cashiers at my work that call me over to their registers because something doesn't ring up. I think they think I know everything. I generally look at them like they are idiots (which most of them are) and tell them to go look at the tag on the shelf. 

17. I forget to eat. 

18.  I don't like being strict with my son, mostly because my aunt and uncle were strict on me. Some would tell you I lived in a bubble my entire life. I hated my childhood. I loved it too. I'm conflicted.

19. My best-friend's family have somewhat adopted me. I love them unconditionally. They are wonderful people.

20. I have lost five people in the past year that I with whom I was very close. I miss them and it depresses me at times. Then I remember that Roger is no longer in pain from his cancer treatments, Betsy (Roger's wife) doesn't have to live without her husband for years upon years, Kenneth (Kaidyn's dad) isn't struggling with his drug addictions, Emma (my best-friend's grandmother) can remember everything clearly, and Damien (my close friend) ... well, I'm struggling with this one still. He's in a better place and he's watching over us all still. Like he did when he was alive.

21. I'm the middle child. I have an older sister (31) and a younger brother (22). My sister has two kids. One biological and one is her step-son. They are wonderful. My brother passed away when he was fifteen. I still struggle from time to time dealing with his death. The hole is still there, and I suspect it will always be there. I've learned to live with it.

22. Sometimes I can't express my feelings or emotions to my closest friends, but I can to perfect stranger with ease. There are things I would tell strangers that I wouldn't tell my best-friend.

23. I am an advocate for Domestic Violence. Especially when it pertains to children. They are innocent and should remain as such for as long as possible. I wasn't given that luxury, but I will make sure other children are if I can.

24.  I hate politics. Also, it interests me. I guess I just hate the drama.

25. I want to be able to look back in twenty-five years and say that I am proud of my accomplishments. No matter how small. I've often been told I deserve more than what I've been given in life, but I disagree. I am me because of my life and my experiences. I want to be proud of that. 

Teani

1. I'm from Sweden. I love my country and think I'm lucky to live here.

2. My name is Jessica, but mostly people shorten it down to Jess. In Sweden it's usually pronounced like the english word 'yes', which can be quite confusing in a stressed situation and someone yells YES all of the sudden, because I always wonder why they're trying to get my attention.

3. I grew up as a shy person hiding in the background, teased, taunted and with few (if any) friends. I did my best to do what I was supposed to do so I wouldn't get into trouble and made as little noise as possible so people wouldn't notice me or how bad I felt.

4. My struggles have strenghtened me and I'm much more outspoken now.

5. I'm studying to become a teacher in English and Geography (two topics I'm passionate about myself)  for the ages 13-16.

6. I'd like to learn more languages, because I think they're interesting. So far I only know Swedish (naturally), English, some Norwegian and basics in Mandarin. I can understand some German and French, but only if they speak slowly.

7. I think I've inherited some form of inner compass from my father, because I rarely get lost. When visiting friends in unfamiliar cities, I have more than once surprised them by knowing how to get back to their place after hours of walking around (or even partying heavily).

8. I did get lost once though, in one of the local forests (which was embarrassing in itself). It was the first time I ever tried using a compass to find a mark on my orienteering map. If I had just trusted my instincts rather than my apparent inability to use those tools, I would have gone the right way.

9. Aetolia has done a lot for me when it comes to my skills in the English language, so much that for the first term through University I didn't even have to do anything to pass every course with flying colors.

10. During my studies I have completed not one, but TWO essays involving Aetolia. Isn't it great when you can combine things like that? One of the essays is a study of how the emote SIGH can be interpreted depending on context. The other is a full thesis on face-management in written conversations with varying degree of insults.

11. I've tried to find a feasible way to involve Aetolia in one of my Geography essays as well, but so far I haven't found one.

12. I love to travel. It doesn't matter if it's a short trip or a long one, I just love the experience.

13. At some point I'd like to go to one of the Meets, just to meet new people, but my monetary situation just won't allow it right now.

14. Back when I was young and foolish, I squandered the money I earned, which has made my life a struggle in later years. It's my own fault really, and not a day goes by that I don't regret living like I did back then without considering my future.

15. People say I'm too nice. I know that's something people tend to say about others now and then and in my case it's probably true. I have a tendency to give too much of myself, my energy and my strength, without concern for my own well-being. If someone needs me, I want to be there for them because I know it will make them feel stronger. I can worry about myself another time.

16. The above tends to take its toll and after a few years I end up crashing down, one way or another. It's not as bad as it used to be. I've learned to check myself a little.

17. I've been called strong all my life, which has made me think I have a reputation to uphold and that I can't afford to fail those around me when they depend on that strength. It can be quite hard sometimes.

18. I have a daughter. She's my biggest success in life and I love her more than life itself. She is brilliant beyond her years. She lives most of her time with her father. It was the most convenient arrangement at the time when we separated. It's never easy to be separated from your child, but you learn to cope and treasure what little time you get.

19. If I suddenly had an obscene amount of money, the first thing I would do would be to clear my debts and put some money into savings for me, and my girl. After that I would travel to see the world and meet new people. I'd probably use some of that money to help my family and friends as well.

20. Like Periluna I can forget to eat. Sometimes when I'm feeling hungry, I try to think back on when I had something to eat last. It gets kind of scary when it adds up to days, not hours.

21. I don't know what I would do without my singing. It can always turn my day around if I'm having a bad one.

22. I always connect certain pieces of music with people. Be it because the lyrics suit them, or the harmonics fit their personality, or I listened to a particular song or band when I interacted with them. Sometimes I do the same to characters I meet in the game, but not always.

23. My bookcase contains mostly fantasy books and I'd love to fill a whole room with more of them. There's something special about escaping to a different world and a time of magic, especially when real life sucks. That's probably why I got caught up in Aetolia to begin with.

24. I once started writing my own fantasy novel, but I haven't finished it. It's saved somewhere, a complete plot line, character breakdowns and 100 pages already written. Maybe one day I'll sit down and actually do something about it.

25. I like cats, big and small, wild and tame. I think the feline animal is an interesting one because of its independence and general strength. At the writing moment, I'm grieving the loss of my own cat (14 y o) who was put to sleep this morning after having a seizure.

Meskhenet

Wow, 25 things. Hrm.

1. My name is Anna. I go by Annabelle though. Even have a tattoo with that name on it.

2. Said tattoo is that of a cow with pink fairy wings. Be jealous.

3. I am 29 and live in Oklahoma. Lived here all my life.

4. Having lived in the same place all my life, I am lucky that I have gotten to travel to several amazing places in the US. I have a goal of getting outside of the US at some point. Preferably Bulgaria. 

5. I am the oldest of 7 total siblings, but was only raised with one. My mom married my stepdad when she was pregnant with me, later on had an affair, and I got my sister who I was raised with. I have no full siblings. My mom and stepdad adopted 3 siblings when I was 18 and already moved out of the house. I love them, and am thankful that we have them in our lives.  

6. I did not meet my biological father till I was 18. Found out I have 2 other siblings, both younger. I should probably spend more time with him and my siblings, but the first thing my biodad did was introduce me to hard drugs.

7. That being said, I was stupid when I moved out when I was 17. I partied, got married, divorced, and then got involved with someone who ended up doing drugs with me. I finally left him. I have been clean from that drug for almost 8 years now - I feel like it is one of my biggest accomplishments ever. 

8. After crazy young time, I met a man and fell in love. One thing - he was already married. So, we all lived together. It was a very bad and abusive relationship - that took me until March of 2012 to get out of.

9. I spent so much time being what other people wanted that I am just now learning how to be myself, for me. To do things for myself. I learn something new about me almost every day.

10. I love to color. 

11. I have two dogs. Rocky Horror Sugar Daddy - my 4 year old English bulldog. And Chewbacca (Chewy) for short - a 12 year old pug. My roommates also have cats but I do not count them, not mine.

12, Me and my roommate run a child care in our home. Its long hours, its hard work, but I actually love doing it.

13. I do not have kids - and can not have them. 

14. I stopped playing MUDS for a long time - because it reminded me of when I was stupid. About 6 months ago, I tried another IRE one - and then tried this one again. I am glad I did.

15. I like creating things - I cross stitch because it is a lot of tedious work that brings out something amazing when it is completed.

16. I am rather kid like in nature. I love shiny things, I love silly toys. I color, I watch cartoons.

17. I am a hopeless romantic. I want it all. I want the white knight - the chivalrous person who opens doors and is polite to everyone and not just me. 

18. I am in school online full time to get an accounting degree. It was the only degree I could settle on - because I like numbers, and because I know I can do it and there will always be a job for someone with an accounting degree.

19. I have two nieces - and a new niece or nephew on the way. I love them like they are my own kids - since I do not have any of my own.

20. I love musicals. I have watched probably every one ever made. Les Mis is probably the best out of all of them that I have seen. Go see if if you have not.

21. I am a fantasy nerd. I read constantly, my books are always in a constant state of flux. I especially love series - but get sad when they are over.

22. I love Dr.. Who. And Dexter, and Once Upon a Time.

23. I have a rather large tattoo on my back of a phoenix. I got it when I left my ex in March. It was the best decision I have made in a long time. The artwork is amazing, and I chose to to remind myself that no matter what, I will always get right back up and go again.

24. I live a simple life. I don't have a cell phone. I like to stay in and cuddle - watch movies. I do not go out and drink and party like I used to, but I will occasionally drink just for the fun of it.

25. I tend to let aspects of myself filter into my characters. So when it is a bad day, or bad things happen, I try not to log on. I know I will let it come through. But I love playing - I love the randomness, the amusement, and the challenge others give me in notching up the level of my writing.