#me an the bestie are starting an rp and this is like... a pre-rp scene i guess

[aelaer]

👀👀 tell us about your rp oc bestie :3

Sorry it took me a while to get to this - I'm honestly flattered that anyone's interested! This character was very important to me for a long time. Here's her portrait I made of her in 2016ish, and more about her is under the cut.

The MMO I played was LOTR Online, which started in 2007 and is still going with active updates even today. I started the first year it was out and played it regularly (obsessively even) until 2018ish. I can't remember how much I played the next two years but I haven't logged in for the last 2-3 years. I might in the future but for now I've had my fill. Highly highly recommend for any LOTR & Tolkien fan, but it can be a huge timesink if you're not careful about keeping track of time.

I'll explain stuff as if whoever is reading this knows nothing about LOTR for wider accessibility.

Anyway, in 2011 I switched servers to start RP and created Laerlin, a human (or as Tolkien calls them, "race of Men"). Her game class was "hunter" which is basically an archer/dps type, and in her story I made her trained in archery by her Ithilien Ranger dad (which is basically a specialist military regiment known for their woodland/stealth skills - they serve Gondor, the largest country of humans in LOTR). Since he was military, he wasn't around all the time so obviously the training was when he was like, on leave and stuff. She grew up with her mom in Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor (and the big white layered stone city you may have seen in screenshots if you've not seen the films) while her dad was in service out in the dangerous borderlands of Ithilien across the river. I have a lot more about her background from pre-RP - happy to tell more if anyone asks.

ANYWAY. Starter characters in LOTRO start hundreds of miles away from Gondor (which wasn't even in the game in 2011) so 3/4ths of human RP chars need to figure out a story as to why they're in the starting hub (a mostly-human town called Bree) in the first place. I had a decently outlined backstory before starting RP that just grew in the telling as I discovered more about Laerlin through RP - if anyone wants to know more about her story (any part of it), just ask.

I figured since I rolled hunter and had that backstory she'd turn into some sort of hunter/adventurer in RP, right? Nope. The stories that ended up happening led her to becoming a healer. Now, healing in LOTR is very low magic, so game mechanics were largely ignored by RPers and anything resembling magic was very rarely used unless supported by Tolkien texts, at least in the RP hub. When I discovered I loved researching ancient healing methods (largely Roman surgery and American native herbal medicines, though I pulled from every old culture), I RPed healing as much as I could, and eventually Laerlin got the reputation of a good healer IC with a detailed player who would RP with basically anyone OOC. She ended up getting very busy and she got to be good through RP as opposed to all offscreen training, which I loved.

I did end up rolling a lot of "alt" characters to also RP with (I think my final count of characters was about 34 over 3 accounts - multiple accounts to RP more than one character at a time, either because one scene is slow or for storytelling purposes). However, Laerlin was always my main, the character I had more hours on by far, and what I got known by (and it's why Laer is still my online handle - it came from the first "Laer" character on my first LOTRO server and really solidified with Laerlin). Because I spent so much time on her in my earlier years of RP, she became pretty well known on the server.

The RP hub of Bree was well known for its town guards vs outlaws RP in 2011 as the head of the town guard was a very patient and tolerant player that RPed with even people I wouldn't RP with. Very nice guy. Because it was so active, Laerlin got a job as a healer in the town watch and got plenty of experience there, lasting until around 2014 after a dramatic firing that landed her jail time. She also eventually opened her own clinic (in player housing) after an RP adventure in the surrounding wilds led to a ton of gold (best excuse ever, I can't even remember who ran that adventure anymore). That got pretty decent usage considering it was outside of the main hub.

Laerlin also did a ton of travel RP. I'd just move her timeline around so I could say "okay in March she's in this area of the world, and the stuff I'm RPing in the hub is after her return". This allowed me to do travel RP and Bree hub RP at the same time. There were only a handful of arcs that I didn't do this and she was gone-gone from city RP. I took her all over the world - from Bree she went to the Shire, Rivendell, Forodwaith, Dunland, Isengard's surrounding areas, Helm's Deep, Dol Amroth, Minas Tirith, and several lands in between. She saw the aftermath of the battle of Helm's Deep as the wounded left behind began to heal, and was in the capital of Gondor when the siege occurred (in LOTRO RP, most players I was with put a long length of time between the two events due to waiting for the areas to be released, unlike the canon timeline - the whole game world's stuck in 7 months of time for several RL years, so canon dates were not strictly followed in RP). She ended up being very well traveled over her 7-8 years of activity.

Laerlin saw plenty of love. Her first fiance died (player went AWOL) within like, 6 months after her creation. She was with her second guy for like, 1.5 to 2 RL years - got married and all, became the hot gossip of the RP hub every now and again - but that ended in divorce. It's still pretty amazing how long that relationship lasted, in hindsight. There was also a tale of unrequited love afterwards from another guy that was one of the best arcs I ever did (and his player I still consider an RL friend - great guy). When I stopped RP, she was still unattached, but I like to think she eventually found love.

LOTRO has an amazing music system which uses these special text files written a certain way to generate a song with several different choices of instruments in-game. This created a lot of bands where players will write the notation for each part and play the song all together - and it often sounds absolutely amazing. But it's also great for RP, and my love for the system turned into Laerlin's love for music. She learned the lute, flute, and harp over the years and often played in Bree's tavern, or just outside. It was a great way to lure people into RP while playing with the system too.

I ended up DMing a lot of RP stories as I grew more confident as a RPer and storyteller. I'm not sure how many plots I ended up leading, but player count in the plots varied from 1-2 people to over a dozen people. Some plots were just for one or two RL days, and my longest one ended up being a month long with planned mini-events 5-6 days of the week (I'd never do that again, I was crazy).

She was also very, very flawed to start. I wanted her to grow through experiences to become a different, better person, so she started off as someone who was easily offended by anything she found uncouth (despite not being upper class, she was from the largest city in the world so definitely cultural clashes when she first came to Bree that took a long time to fully smooth out). More importantly, she had a prejudice based on her county's history with their southern neighbor, and a good dose of history and propaganda made her very disdainful of anyone from that area (Umbar, for those who know Tolkien). It took her *years* to get rid of it, and it was so satisfying to RP her growth. But she still maintained a bit of a short fuse that was triggered by some of the most minor things even in the end, which kept her interesting.

She didn't meet a ton of Tolkien canon characters. Barliman Butterbur was the most frequent since he owns said tavern that was the RP hub. Probably some background Shire Hobbits. In Rivendell, I think I was in plots where someone RPed as Elrond and I definitely had her meet Bilbo. She knew Halbarad because she was trusted by many RP Rangers who came into Bree and met him in one of those travel adventures. Erkenbrand was a major player in my Helm's Deep plot. The most egregious meeting was when she worked in the Houses of Healing after the siege and got to meet Aragorn. But by that time she had built 4 or 5 years of RP with his Rangers so it worked out well, like as a capstone to her long, long journey of growth and self discovery.

Laerlin alone saw hundreds of thousands of words of RP storytelling. Some of the RP was very silly, but a lot of it was poignant and really special. I'd never spend as much time online again as I did in the earlier years of RP, but I can't say I regret it, either, because I made a lot of friends and my growth as a writer was substantial. Because of all this, Laerlin will always have a special place in my heart.

But yeah if anyone has any questions about her (or any of the other... 34 RP characters...), or about what the LOTRO RP was like, feel free to ask. Or if you want to see any screenshots, I still have those on my old computer that I can pull up.

[deiliamedlini]

Excuse me, calling me out RIGHT IN THE TAGS LOU! 🤣🤣! I refuse to count art bc I have art adhd, so only writing. Oh boy here we go...

Shoot actually it's so long i'm going to use the line break

pirates loz

dance with me

ghosts of hyrule

Hocus pocus au

jungle au

mod au scenes

spirit tracks au

spyxfamily au

zelda's awakening

link/zelda/dark

zelda/dark

zelda/fierce deity

tp

dwm smut

pirates fun (smut)

edge of humanity

hill house au

little zelink (i need to rename this it's not even about this anymore i rewrote it so many times)

marriage of convenience

mmorpg

mob au

one knight (still a wip bc i have potential sequel stuff in there)

portal au

swan songs (4 oneshots)

Time traveler and her knight

uncharted au

whump 2022

zombie au

contractually obligated

dr quin au

bad calamity severe-evil child au

titanic au

dwts hyrule edition

black cauldron au

Hercules au

mulan au

lion king au

Struggling Artist Link/ Successful Violinist Zelda

A Piece of My Heart?- "Unreal" AU

Dark Link/Hylia

Superhero AU

But In Dreams

Surprise Post Calamity Pre Calamity Pregnancy

WWE/WWF

Shadowland (don't ask about this one idk what i was on when i started writing this but i don't know what it's meant to be about lol)

In the Face of the Enemy

Double Amnesia

Space Scientists

Glorified Cheating

Zelda vs. Ganon

Android Link AU

Thinking of You Again

Makeela and Pipit Mini Adventure- Pre Dating

The Cycle Repeats

Across The Room

Stop Following Me

Firefighter Sequel

Supernatural Creatures AU

Ghost/Haven

Like Father, Like Son

Staged

One Heart, Two Minds

What I Wouldn't Do For You- Fatherhood

Mind Share

Besties

One Last Look

Anastasia RP

Pirate Tour Guide RP

College AU RP

P&P AU RP

Pokemon RP

hrmmm did i forget anything 😂😭😂😭

I'm not tagging anyone. I feel called out bhahahhahah!!! 😂😂😂

Thanks for the tag @zartophski!!! I love tag games :D

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips. I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? Dnd campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!

Sometimes the special interest fuels me a little too much... (The ones in bold are the ones I'm actively working on writing, the other are just ideas or plot outlines)

Authenticity

Autistic Sky on the surface

Beauty and the Beast AU

Chain gets de-aged

Chain meets (this one is old and I don't like it so it will probably never see the light of day)

Dirt (I BEG OF YOU TO ASK ABOUT DIRT XDXD)

Febuwhump 2023 (still taking requests or ideas!)

Four smiling compilation but it's only like two panels (LU analysis WIP)

Funny modern AU

Gremlin compilation (LU analysis WIP)

happy times in everyone's Hyrule

Hero's spirit is autistic

Legend and Hyrule whumptober (this may reworked for a febuwhump, we'll see)

LU in Disney World!!!

Modern AU

Murder Mystery on a Train

No Place To Go But Everywhere (Only the Wild Ones sequel I'll get to one day maybe probably maybe)

Stars Are Up Now (also in the Only the Wild Ones universe)

Temple Escape

That's an Order

Time is Sad the Fic ™

Twi and Flora (also also in Only the Wild Ones verse)

Wild and Twilight whumptober

Wild and Wolfie

Winter fun times

Won't Remember

25 writing WIPs.... at least I won't run out of things to write lol :D. Ask away if any intrigue you!

I'll tag @zarvasace @wildsage00 @wolfwarden @silvercaptain24 @minty-mumbles and also @osierrasoulo @unicyclingdogs for art WIPs!

[autistic-beshelar]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Cala Athmaza & Deret Beshelar, Cala Athmaza/Deret Beshelar Characters: Deret Beshelar, Cala Athmaza Additional Tags: Autistic Character, Autistic Beshelar, i will make that a tag so help me god, Pre-Slash, though you could definitely read this as platonic, and they were roommates!, local maza has curiosity to rival that of a courier's, local maza bullies local gruff autistic soldier to talk about his special interest Summary:

eitheiavan - a religious word for a calling

Cala has always liked asking questions. Beshelar has never much liked answering them.

He does anyway.