Ganked from cadhla

[camwyn]

in what I am sure is a completely vain hope that anyone will find it interesting when I do it.

Better late than never:

Ask a question, clearly labelled, of any character that I have ever played or written, and I will answer it ICly. MUSH, MUCK, fanfiction, original fiction, I don't care. My head's as crowded with characters as the Fairbanks backpackers' hostel during aurora season.

Comments

[quintus.livejournal.com]

Pah, your alter egoes are interesting :-)

Beaner, what on earth prompted you to marry that husband of yours? ()

[camwyn]

Welllll... I was still in my shy phase back then. The idea that there was someone who I could have that much conversation with and not get turned away for being strange, even by Etherist standards? That counts for a lot. I have a feeling if you ask around a bit, you'll find a lot of cases where 'they laughed at me, I'll destroy them all, the fools' could have been cured very easily if there were just someone who didn't laugh at $incipient_mad_scientist's ideas, but found 'em fascinating and worth discussing instead.

And my God, but that man had a voice...

[zou.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha. Feel my vanity!

Calvin: Why Monica?
Fang: Who's your favourite out of Annie, Licky, and Jane? Why?

[camwyn]

Calvin's answer:

Aw, geez. You want specifics? Um. *rubs at back of neck awkwardly, elbow high in the air* Well . . . she was cute, to start with. Some nockers are scary-looking little gnome things, but she was cute. And when I first met her she seemed like an interesting person, even though she didn't talk much. I mean, she seemed kind of shy at first, but when she did speak it was always something interesting. Didn't realize how much of the not-talking was probably because of her language problem, but it's not like that matters. . . anyway, after the thing with the cookies and the seeing everyone naked, she was all embarrassed when I told her what was going on. I don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything, but geez, she was cute all purple and folded up like that. And there's just something about the way she swears like it's nothing at all- I mean, I know all knockers do that, or a lot of 'em anyway- it's just. . . I dunno. She's honest and straightforward about just about everything, except the stuff that really bothers her, and I figure everyone's entitled to some of that. So she's cool, and that's why.

Fang's answer:

I'm going to have to go with Licky on this one. I know it's not very nice of me to say so, but I scarcely remember Annie- it's been a while, and if it helps at all I've been so caught up in dealing with Judy and Jing-jing that a good bit of my brain's temporarily gone missing. Nothing personal, I assure you. Jane's a lovely person, really, but I've got legends and mythic powers enough in my life as it stands. You can walk back as far as you like along my family tree or my Avatar's incarnation line; you'll get to legendary folk eventually, but what they're legendary for is human conflict on the one side, and parlaying petty human charisma and wit into greater things on the other. Leaves a fellow feeling a bit inadequate when dealing with someone who's the Voice of the Sea- er- I do hope I've got Jane right, now that I think about it. . . At any rate, Licky was like every comic opera and every action movie ever written all poured into a single container and shaken violently, and it's always good to have someone like that around. Keeps you on your toes, though I do hope Jing-jing doesn't get any ideas along those lines herself, I've only managed to fit twenty-eight hours into the typical twenty-four hour day so far. . .

[ohimesamamama.livejournal.com]

Calvin: What would surprise people about your slime?

Fang: Same question I asked Judy -- so how is it being a parent?

[camwyn]

Calvin's answer: He's kind of fastidious. People automatically assume that a slime is going to want to live among slime and muck and other unhygienic conditions, but Beaner really doesn't go for that kind of thing. I'm not sure why, since he hasn't got the hang of reproducing writing yet and he hasn't bothered to render an answer in Morse code. He understands Morse just fine, though. And English. Just doesn't communicate in either one, for reasons he hasn't shared with me. I figure he's probably trying to train me to communicate in color.

Fang's answer: Beginning to understand a bit why theatrical directors wind up looking like they've been wrung out and left to dry on the windowsill. Jing-jing's the biggest incentive I've ever had to learn how to sleep well, because her idea of a decent time to be awake and mine rarely coincide. I'm not objecting, mind you- I'm just saying that if you can't learn adaptability and flexibility from caring for a baby, then you're probably going to be in a great deal of health and mental trouble very quickly.

She's got a nice set of lungs on her, though, I'll give her that, and I suspect she's going to be picking up on opera almost as quickly as spoken speech. I don't expect her to follow in my footsteps- I mean, honestly, did I follow in my father's, or did Hua follow in Mother's?- but she's got the potential for it, I can tell already. I know everyone says she's still too young to be smiling properly, but they've got their heads in cramped inconvenient places that smell very bad, if you understand me. I can tell that she thinks Judy, or Miao, or myself is just the funniest thing she's ever seen. And that she's frustrated with the whole concept of 'foot', because right now that's just a subset of 'things that are not in my mouth'. She's not really making a lot of distinctions yet, so-

Um. I'm blathering, aren't I.

[genarti]

John Constantine: What's your favorite thing about Hogwarts?

What do *I* like about Hogwarts? Huh.

[camwyn]

Ever spend so long with something a particular kind of wrong that you don't know what to think when it changes? You know, like that loudmouthed git down the pub who's not there any more after fifteen years of driving everyone else 'round the twist, or the day you get your eyeballs lasered and you've got to get rid of your glasses? It's like that. I've lived most of my life with something hanging over me or my mates. If it's not Hell after someone's soul, it's some other power I've pissed off, or it's something as simple and stupid as the National Front looking to knock me down by takin' out my friends. Or it's angry angels, or cult weirdoes, or the end of the sodding world. Point is, it's never anything small, and it's always there. It's been there as long as I can remember, or damn near that long.

It's not there any more.

I know there's a war on here, but it's not the same thing. Hell, 's not even my war. They've been managing pretty well here, they've got a handle on it- I mean, the Big Bad's been thwarted by that Potter kid five years running, right? What's the worst they've done, cocked up one government building? All right, there's been murders along the way, but it isn't the same. . .

Nah, that's not what you want to hear, is it? That's not 'liking', that's 'being bloody relieved about'. Different game altogether. All right, let me think about this.

The magic's a little strange here, but once you get used to it, it's not half bad. Damned easy, next to what I learned back home. Food's not half bad, which is a sodding miracle at a boarding school. The library makes me wish conjured items didn't vanish after an hour or three, since that witch Pince looks about ready to bite off me head if I so much as think of copying the books out by hand. . . I s'pose it's a toss-up, really. I'd say the library wins hands down, only there's nothing in this world quite like having a whole choir of junior witches and wizards try to brighten up a Christmas away from home by cornering you behind the greenhouses and singing Pogues songs at you in four-part harmony.

Tell anyone I said that, and it's warts and green for you, mate.

[aberrantangels]

For Sulen: what single artefact from before the Grinding Ice most gives you to think that the race of Men have fallen greatly from what once was? And what invention of the modern Age most gives you to think that Men of your day have far surpassed those of Ages past?

*Sulen steeples her fingers as she sits, thinking*

[camwyn]

There is no one thing to be held in the hands that speaks to me in the way the Museum's stone did to my father. I have never been so lucky as that- and yes, I do call him lucky. For all that the stone hastened his end and has never worked under my own hands, it gave him that which he had always dreamed of, and that which he had never thought to see. I have only his final letter to tell me of his vision, and even he said his words were nothing but a poor pale shadow of what he saw... But if you are willing to call something larger an artifact, even though I have never touched it- then there is a thing that I have seen, that no Men since the Grinding Ice could ever have matched.

After I saw the city among the sea-mounts for the first time, and brought back its pictures, most of Tiryat University did not know what to think. The Deepsinger was the first of its kind- there have been vessels that go under the sea for some years, but none so far or so low as the Deepsinger. It was some time before my find was confirmed. Most of my colleagues reserved judgment, but one- a Rydmic native by the name of Lluhadi- believed in my find at the very first sight of our pictures. His ancestors were among the people who migrated south at the coming of the Ice, and they had a tale of a great lake in the distant north, on the shores of which there once stood a great city. It was devoured by the Ice, but one might still see it from a boat, if one were lucky indeed.

When you are going under the surface, you do not need luck. The city remained unviolated by the Ice, though how I do not know. Some great heaving of the land, perhaps, cast its surroundings down, or raised up the lake. In any case the city was not devoured- it was drowned, and I can say this with all certainty. I have taken the Deepsinger into that northern lake, the coldest of all sweet water. I have seen the city, I have followed its streets, I have come as close to its palaces as anyone may who wishes to live. There is nothing, nothing in Anuar to compare with such a city. The people who built that place built for the Ages, and built things of such grandeur and splendour that the heart aches to see it and know it cannot exist the more.

I mean no offense to Anuar and its people. Anuar is the Sun's City, the City of Triumph; it was built on the foundations of old Tiryat, the City of the Guardians. And it is a fine city. But the Drowned City was taken by Lake Anyaminos when it was in its prime, and the cold waters have kept it forever splendid. It is not a city of the dead, as some would call it. It is a city silent, asleep, claimed by the water to save it from the predations of Time.

And only I and my crew will ever see it so. There is a world of difference beyond a picture taken of a thing, and the sight of the thing itself. No ship of the surface will ever see more than a hint or two, not unless someone thinks of a way to draw down the waters of an ice-swollen lake twenty leagues from end to end. No swimmer, no matter how bold or hardy, can ever come so deep. To see this place, or the City of the Seamounts, is a thing not even the Men who built it might ever have done- for not one story, not one song, not even one scrap of anything like physical evidence exists to say that the ships of Ages past were capable of travelling under the waves.

This invention is the jewel in our crown, then, the star of our time. The work of our hands, the devices of our hearts: the deep-craft that bring us at last, after all the Ages that have been and gone, to the source of memory and hope- the Sea.