Wow! Busy day.
Warning: long post ahead!
Let this be a lesson: taking initiative and acting on something leads to more opportunity.
In this case, it was responding to Raechka's post to have a "healing conference." It mentioned giving a letter to the AAMS to deliver to healers, so I said, 'why not'? It happened to be the night of Ironforge Clinic, so Derscha put on her uniform and made a delivery to Rhudran.
As it turned out, Rhudran had a letter to send, as well. It seemed like a simple transaction, and not something Derscha could actually deliver, since the character didn't exist yet. Rhudran was setting up the event ICly. I made of note of it, but figured I was done.
Until the other day- when Rhu asked if I could start a forum post about the delivery.
I've been RPing a lot with Arietha lately, the new "trainee" courier. So even though the delivery was in a far off place like Storm Peaks, I thought it would be fun to take her along. Besides, having someone there to provide dialogue and ask questions is always more interesting than several paragraphs of internal monologue and info-dumping.
I haven't made many IC posts, but I've tried to include a bit of character play in each one. A detail that shows something about Derscha's character.
I remember some advice about scriptwriting, which used an example from a Deep Space Nine episode involving a minor character. The point of the example was that, in the opening scene that introduced the character, the scene wasn't based around someone saying, 'Hey, this is so-an-so, she's awesome.' The scene actually focused more on the interplay and joking around between Miles O'Brien and his wife Keiko. All the same information was conveyed- there was a Bajoran woman who worked with Miles, and he thought she was great her job- but it was delivered in an engaging way and that showed the relationship between the spouses.
That's why I wanted Arietha along. I didn't want a page of 'Derscha goes there and makes a delivery to Merral Stoneheardt.' I wanted a scene between two people who happened to be making a delivery. It's still mostly delivery-based, but I liked the way it turned out.
I had to ask Ari a few questions about some ideas and how'd she react, but once I decided to include her, the scene was much easier to write. It's a little odd "controlling" someone else's character, though.
I also thought it was somewhat funny that Derscha was the "experienced" flight master, when I'd only bought her Cold Weather License earlier that day, and she'd never taken one wingbeat past the shores of the Borean Tundra.... ah, the difference between IC and OOC!
Truth is, Ari's probably older than Derscha in physical years, too, thanks to different life spans. Isn't that odd? Derscha herself is about seventy years old. She can remember the days before orcs!
At the end of the scene, I left them at the hospital taking a tour. It was good place to stop. Rhudran contacted me again- since we hadn't officially left on screen, did we want to be there when Merral showed up? I said sure and got my first lesson in cooperative scene writing.
Ari was on, so I grabbed her, since she was there ICly as well. We acted out the meeting, and I took responsibility for editing it and making a post. You'd think it'd be easy to take the chat log and reformat it, ready-to-go, but noooooo. Stylistically, I needed to change it all to past tense, which meant retyping everything. I added a few details and smoothed out some transitions between our individual contributions- and sorry, Ari, I cut out a few of your 'Arietha smiles.' I stuck mostly to what had happened. I added a somewhat ominous ended though, but got the two of them out of the abbey and back into the world.
Good thing, too. We had another AAMS request while we were RP'ing that out. It had been a busy day in Cenarion Circle, and plots were rolling! Ronnad from Terra Incognita needed a message delivered, and we met in Dalaran. (It later occurred to me that Dalaran was the perfect place for Ari and Derscha to have traveled ICly after leaving the Storm Peaks.)
The couple of days I spent reading through CC's forums paid off. Ronnad asked for a meeting with three less-than-trustworthy characters from the Horde: Tyrexus, Raoul, and Abominus. I knew (mostly) who they were and that Derscha would in her right to demand restrictions on their services. Several months ago, AAMS arranged for Gentyl, Abominus, and Red Earth to meet at a public location. It turned into a huge fight among at least three guilds, resulting in AAMS issuing a new policy against translating for large groups. Continuity is wonderful!
(Someone, one day, needs to update the AAMS website with details like that. Not that we should let it get in the way of good RP- 'sorry, can't do that because someone who played months ago said we couldn't' - but it's those ongoing details that help build a community and provides real consequences and world building to what we're doing. Who wants to have a reset button at the end of every plot? At the same time, there is a need for flexibility to allow new players to join in. Not everyone will enjoy spending a week slogging through out-of-order forums posts. And I could only backtrack as far as the forum redesign at the beginning of Cata... what was it like on the original forums?)
So then I grabbed that chat log and spent time editing it to add to the forum.
Finally, Ari and I popped over on Hordeside, and finally found someone in AAMS to give us invites. We can now both officially provide a toon on either side, depending on what's needed. I once used Kezrin at a Halloween party that needed an AAMS associate, and it somewhat fun having her insist she was "bona fide, really!" and no, she wasn't just "dressed up" as an AAMS courier for Hallow's End. Now I can prove it with a guild tag!
Ari rolled a goblin, and once she's out of the starting zone, we're going to RP as sisters so we can stick together and level. Kezrin and Myzzi Kanzelry. I don't really have much on Kezrin besides a basic personality (curious and over-eager) and an explanation for the last name being a play on "candlery." I don't want her to be too much like Derscha, but it's so much fun playing pushy little people! Having a sister might help me find ways to differentiate them.
And so that has been my very, very busy couple of last days. And don't even get me started on what's been going in real life. Let me give you a hint: it involved huge, huge crowds of Superbowl shoppers, and a broken water pipe directly above the book department.... when it rains...
I have been so very glad to have something fun to come home to!
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