[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

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The player scrapbooks forum is literally a place for writers to warm-up, brainstorm, keep little scraps of notes, or just post things to encourage themselves and each other. Each player can feel free to create their own thread - one per account - and use them accordingly.

[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Cascade on May 17th, 2012, 4:10 am

Ohoho, drawing of Monty and Pash... together. |:)
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[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Pash'nar on May 17th, 2012, 4:32 am

I knew you'd bite.
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[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Montaine on May 21st, 2012, 12:20 pm

Cry Me a River

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I hesitate to post a link to this, but here is Hoarse Whispers graded by Arcane. I still haven't figured out who you are behind that modly purple, but I can only apologise for that one. I was not happy with how it turned out. Anyway, there a bigger and more important things afoot, more sizeable sea-life to cook, as this post also happens to fall on the anniversary of the day when some two decades ago from now a tiny baby emerged from a place no son likes to imagine exists. Talking of babies would move me neatly into the main flow of this post, but first, as it is indeed my birthday, I'm going to do two scraps today, so if there's something you want me to talk about, or give my opinion on or just generally ramble around with no specific direction, post it down below and I'll pick out my favourite, and or one at random if I can't be arsed, and write about it later.

Now, crying. This'll shock you, but I'm not much of a crier. I know, I know, I'm normally such an emotive person, right? Truth is, I've never been one to express negative emotions outwardly, be it anger, sadness, disappointment or the like. If it's a mild complaint, like the cold or slight back pain I'll complain 'til the cows come home, but else I'll generally keep it to myself. Hm, reading that over it doesn't sound too psychologically healthy. Let me see if I can clarify this in a way that doesn't lead to my sectioning. Some people cry when they are sad, when I'm sad, I watch Doctor Who and that generally cheers me up.

I come from a family of non-criers too, so I suppose it's not much of a surprise that I am the way I am. My Mum claims to cry roughly once a year, though I've never seen it myself. I've heard of my Dad crying once in his life, though I suspect he has cried more often than that. Myself? I've cried twice over the last decade, both times due to my brother's relentless, ah, how to put this delicately? He's not my favourite person in the world. Although he cries at the drop of a hat. The reason for my lack of ocular leakage is almost certainly entirely down to the environment in which I was raised, if you're in a house where crying isn't the predominant means of showing upset there's every chance you'll react the same way. However, my Mum has a sweet story as to why I don't cry. It follows:

Roughly twenty years ago, before the cynical baby I was turned into the cynical man I am, I was born. I think we can generally class this as a positive thing, certainly I'm thankful for it. Now this was back in the days when they would take the baby away from the mother and put it in those big rooms full of babies. Now it is important to remember here that I am not, even at the best of times, what anyone would call a 'people person'. Even at the tender age of a day I was not pleased to be in such a crowded social situation with so many new people I did not know. As such I cried.

Oh how I cried. I cried and cried and cried until eventually a nurse had to remove me from the big baby room because I was disturbing everyone else. So I was instead put into the infant equivalent of solitary confinement, some room off one of the corridors. Apparently I continued to cry all night long until finally, come the new day, the door opened and my mother came into the room and she swears the second I saw her I stopped my crying. From that day on I was the most affable baby. I assume I still cried sometimes, I was, after all, a newborn child, but she says to this day that I barely cried at all from then onwards.

The truth of this story has probably been bent a little and warped in a few places over the past two decades and the reason I don't cry as much as your average person is obviously not because I cried out all my tears that first night, but it's a sweet story all the same. I can't really pull off sweet so much these days, so instead I'm going for 'disgruntled'. I think I nailed it.

Word of the day: echelon, a level or rank, but also, curiously, a verb meaning to arrange into levels or ranks.

-Monty
Last edited by Montaine on May 26th, 2012, 12:03 am, edited 3 times in total.
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[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Pash'nar on May 21st, 2012, 12:52 pm

First of all, happy birthday! I'd bake you a cake or cookies, but that would be cruel to a pregnant woman and they'd never make it to you over there across the pond without being moldy and inedible anyway. So, I'll just eat some cookies in your honor sometime today. I could put a candle on one of them. Sing to 'em. Or something. Probably not, but it's the thought that counts, right? :D

Second, I'm not one to cry in public or, honestly, even in front of my husband. If I must, and I do often enough, I have to be somewhere by myself or with, at most, one other person. I'm sure that's not the healthiest of things, but it's just what I do. I didn't cry at our wedding, which the man still likes to bring up on occasion (if only because he did cry, there in his kilt, in front of everyone and it was the most adorable thing on the planet ever for real), but he understands that my dysfunctional side of the family managed to scrape it together long enough to be present for our big day and thus completely ruined any chances of emotional outburst from me until we were alone in the car far away from them. Ha. So, I suppose it has some roots back there in family stuff. I feel that crying can be good if it's productive, if it leads to a willingness to talk about issues, but, since I'm prone to hormone-induced emotions I'd not otherwise invite upon myself, I just try to keep crying to myself so as to not appear too insane. ;)

Maybe it's too late for that.

You're story is cute, though, if only because I'm biased about babies. Eli was never a crier, and I'm thankful. Wailing babies are exhausting, regardless of how cute they may otherwise be. It sounds like you got it all out of your system in 24 hours. Haha. Poor thing. I couldn't do the rooming-away thing with Eli—he was too new and too precious and had to be by my uncomfortable hospital bed so I could stare at him at 3 in the morning and watch him sleep. I'm weird that way. Besides, when the nurses come in every two hours to poke you and prod you and make sure you're feeling alright and see if you need anything, it's not like you're sleeping anyway. What's a baby in the mix? Ugh!

I digress.

Again, happy birthday!
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[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Minerva Agatha Zipporah on May 21st, 2012, 1:12 pm

Monty, you win buku bonus points for using the phrase "my lack of ocular leakage".

Pash, your husband wears a kilt? O.o I thought you lived I'm Virginia? Is your husband from Scotland?

As for me, I'm a crier. I try to only cry when I'm alone because I get embarrassed about it. But I cry a lot. Especially certain sad movies. "Rent" made me cry like a little girl who's kitten just got run over. I also cried when my kitten got run over when I was 10, so that's barely even a simile.
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[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Pash'nar on May 21st, 2012, 1:39 pm

He doesn't wear a kilt on a regular basis, per say, but he did wear a kilt in our wedding. And it was, understandably, hawt. He's of Scottish decent, indeed. According to his aunt, who has taken extensive pains to trace everyone back to their homeland, their family took care of Wallace's kids after he was martyred. Got me a winner, I did. :D

Here in the states, he's just Appalachian, but his history is more fun than mine. :)

I live in VA, but I'm not from there.

Poor kitten!

Now that I'm preggo again, my chances of unnecessary ocular leakage have increased significantly. I'm glad we don't have cable because right now, even stupid commercials would make me cry.
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[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Anselm on May 21st, 2012, 3:05 pm

Okay ... I ran across this thread and now I'm feeling totally inadequate. I was thinking you were all just a bunch of normal people like me and now I discover you are literary and artistic people. I just know it's only a matter of time before someone asks me, "Who is your greatest literary influence?" and I'll say, "Uhm ... I dunno ... John Grisham I guess."

Thanks a lot, Montaine! You're never gonna get that horse back now.

*Anselm goes off to sulk.
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[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Arcane on May 21st, 2012, 3:25 pm

I hesitate to post a link to this, but here is Hoarse Whispers graded by Arcane. I still haven't figured out who you are behind that modly purple, but I can only apologise for that one. I was not happy with how it turned out.


Aha to be honest I could feel the writing energy stutter out at the end, but the front was awesome, and you did a pretty good save by ending it before it dragged on. That said, it would be a disservice to you to condemn the thread simply based on the ending when the imagery and poetry evoked in the front part was awesome. No one can churn out 140% best sellers all the time! I'm just happy I can read the great stuff you're coming up with, so don't be disheartened and keep going! :)
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[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Anselm on May 21st, 2012, 3:51 pm

Stories fight back sometimes, don't they? I just finished Master Meditations. I put hours into rewrites trying to get various parts of the story to flow. But to no avail. I finally decided to just move on. I'm going to submit it to get the XP that I wrote it for, but I'm definitely not satisfied. My point is, sometimes stories just fight you all the way.

BTW, I read Hoarse Whispers and I thought it was a pretty good story. I especially like how you drew out Montaine's total obsession with the fortune teller.
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[Montaine's Scrapbook] The Cellar Door

Postby Echelon on May 21st, 2012, 7:03 pm

Echelon! Best word of the day, EVER! (Now think on the fact that status system in Zeltiva was my idea, though of course we all brainstormed for it. Ironic cause I echelondeded Zeltiva. Ranks, go! You've all be Echelon'd)

As a young child, before puberty I had quite the habit of acting stoic. I wasn't, but I pulled it off pretty well for reasons I can't recall. Puberty changed all that, my emotions were everywhere, up and down and all over the place. I liked it, to be completely honest. Perhaps I could be a bit difficult to tolerate at times, due to sheer intensity. But, it made me feel alive. And so, I vowed to myself to never become one of those people who never cry, because once you lose the lowest depths of pain you also lose those heights of pleasure. Which fuckin' sux.

Here I am now, twenty one years old, and I haven't cried in several years. Not premeditated, mind you. I still wish I could cry, but it simply won't happen. Horrifying, and earth shattering experiences pass me by, and I can't even bat a wet eyelash. Nope, I think I'm broken.

That aside, I want you to write about how exactly you feel about people. Here's the thing, I'm an extrovert. Oh god am I extroverted. If I'm feeling tired or down all I need to do is find a huge crowd and step into it, close my eyes and feel the energy filling me. I think about all those lives, those feelings, and somewhere along the line everything about myself ceases to matter. I realize how small I am, and my troubles just melt away. Then I start looking at people, their stance, their general demeanor, their facial expressions, and I can feel their emotions. As if stepping out of myself they fall into me, and I can see what they see, causing the world to just explode in new and colorful ways. This is the effect other people have one me, individuals can do it too. I just would never have energy if it weren't for other people. Being a hermit, would never work for me.

Now, the reason I ask is because I have a lot of introverted friends, and family. They very in severity, but the common thread is they all recharge by getting alone time. I can accept this, but what I would really really love is to understand it! And since we have all established- one seconds i'm guna go eat a banana - ok back, since we have all established that you are a young literary genius perhaps you can fashion together a strong of prose for us all to help understand how it feels for an introvert to both be around people, and alone.

Can you do that?

p.s. Happy b-day! We are glad to have you with us in this life <3
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