AOL Characters

These are the characters that I played on AOL from 1999-2003. AOL is where I started RP, primarily in guild-based games that comprised of chat rooms, IMs, and message boards. The one I spent the most time in was the Order of the Crimson Star, where I had a veritable revolving door of characters in and out of the guild, especially after I got my own AOL account and could create multiple usernames. After the OCS, I participated in PSLs (Private Storylines) and GPSLs (Group Private Storylines) through IM/chat with friends, before taking a break for a bit while in college. I had literally dozens more characters than are listed here, but these are the only ones that I truly remember, years later.

For purposes of the stats page, the characters here count as 3 games (1. the guild-based games; 2. the BtVS GPSL; 3. Agents of War). Although they are listed here separately, they don't count as a separate game or separate characters from where they are listed under Auveria.

Cinnia Vera Kapvilski

My very first character. Cin was … complicated. And keep in mind that she was played in Rhy'Din on AOL, so any sue-ism is probably mild in comparison to those around her. She's an immortal, perpetually looking around the age of eighteen, and has a ZOMGTRAGIC past. Y'see, she is / was married to this other immortal, but he abused her and so she ran away with her wee little three-year-old daughter. Then she met this guy (Bahamut Zero, who was a perfectly normal human, and I am so not fucking with you on that) and they were happy and engaged and then her ex showed up and was all "OMG NO HAPPINESS FOR YOU" and kidnapped her and Bahamut was all "grrrrrrrr!" and went to save her and saved her and kicked the ex's ass (despite the ex being an immortal and Bahamut being a perfectly normal human. *cough*) and then he and Cinnia got married and were happy and had twins. Then even more of her tragic past came out and Bahamut was all "fuck this, you're seriously way too tragic for me, I'm leaving. kthnxbai." and he walked out on her, her now-five-year-old daughter and their infant twins. And that was around when I stopped playing her because I was having a hard time keeping her tragic past straight. (AOL in the 90s, man. It was a trip.)

Serafienna Temalenared

She was a pretty damned awesome character, if I do say so myself. One of my first non-sues. She was actually a character based on a race in a series of books that I'm working on (which are kinda stagnating, but shu'up), so it was nice having a wholly unique character. She had boundaries, she wasn't immortal (just from a long-lived race), a good archer, and she had issues but not ZOMGISSUES. She comes from a race of beings who don't give a damn about humans and shoot-first-ask-questions-later but she herself is very big on the "don't kill except in defense or for food" thing, which got frowns from her people.

James Cummings

James was fucking awesome, man. She had issues but in the fun way. Her parents wanted a son, so when they ended up with a daughter, they just gave her the boy's name they'd planned to use. She was a pyrokinetic who was also schizophrenic — she heard voices, and they told her to do things. Like burn down her family's home with her parents sleeping inside. Sadly, nobody in the Order really wanted to play with someone who might suddenly turn them into a crispy critter (damn closed-minded people) so she saw very little play and was, sadly, eventually dropped because she was so unused. (In later years, I brought her back in a variety of other games, with various changes; I dropped the schizophrenia but kept the pyrokinesis, and updated/changed other details as best suited the individual games.)

Alexandra Tawnie Marietta

Hands-down, my favorite character ever. She was sweet, loveable. She rose through the OCS ranks quickly, and it was actually when she was made Colonel of the Mystic Talisman that I met Britt, who had been a best friend for years afterward. The Mystic Talisman Command Staff (Britt was Commander, our friend Dee was General, and I was Colonel) was just made of kick-ass awesome for the three weeks it lasted. Although both Buffy and Lana included in their command reports every week that they wanted Alex to remain in the Legion, even though it would cost her a promotion to General (and Alex had the same exact sentiment in her weekly reports, which were copied to the game's command staff), she was eventually promoted to General of the Arrow's Flight: the position had opened and they wanted someone competent to fill it, even though it meant going against my wishes, as well as Britt's and Dee's (and, of course, the wishes of the characters, lmao). And, you know. That's what Alex was. Competent. Hard-working. She was just so much fun to play, too, because even though she was sweet and caring, she still had a wicked sense of humor. Sadly, her run as a character was cut short. She was dating this guy, and they had the cutest relationship in the history of the RP world, sorry other cute couples, and they even got engaged. Unfortunately, the fiancé's player thought that feelings between our characters extended to feelings between the two of us, so he thought I was in love with him, as well. He started harassing me through the game, and he kept trying to find out things about me: where I lived, where I went to school, things like that. Luckily, at this time, I was going by an online alias so he couldn't find real-world me. But, the harassment was getting to crazy levels: he would find out my other AOL SNs and IM me there to harass me, and even if I blocked his SN on all of mine, he would create new ones to harass me from. I finally had to do the horrible thing and cut off all of my current characters (the others at the time weren't major ones), and having to do that with Alex just killed me, but I had to get rid of everything that he could use to track me: SNs, characters, etc. For a really long time, I would get on-edge whenever I got an IM from someone whose name I didn't recognize.

Harmony Frost

Honestly, I don't really remember too much about Harmony. I remember that she was a Vampire Slayer and she tracked Buffy down to the OCS, and this is what kicked off the below-mentioned SL. Other than that … I really don't remember anything about her. Eh-heh. PB: Heather Graham

Camryn Summers, Willow Rosenberg, Anya, Cordelia Chase

I'm lumping them all together because they were all played together in an SL that I had with Britt and eventually Kristen, too. Camryn was the daughter of Buffy and Angel (who, through SORAS [Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome] became a teenager [along with her twin brother Nate] when her mom and Buffy's friends were still in their, like, twenties). I actually don't remember much about the SL, but I do remember that Britt and Kristen continued the SL after I stopped playing and did a lot with it that I probably wouldn't have, so … yeah. PBs: Kirsten Storms (Camryn); Alyson Hannigan (Willow), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia)

Carissa Hawthorne

She, like Alex, was a lightning-in-a-bottle character. An amazing once-in-a-lifetime character who was just … perfect. Ris was vivacious, bubbly, friendly, and a total sweetie. The youngest child and only daughter of a wealthy European aristocratic-ish family (from an island nation that I made up, lol), she was constantly shadowed by her bodyguard, because she'd been kidnapped from her bedroom at the age of twelve. She moved to Rhy'Din to have a life free from the past, where she met Virginia Westin (played by my then-friend Kristen), who became her best friend. The two of them and their brothers became the basis for a PSL that spanned years between Kristen and me. She was just one of my favorite characters to play, and was for years until I cut ties with Kristen. PB: Izabella Miko

Eric Hawthorne

Eric is one of Carissa's older brothers (there are four Hawthorne kids, Matthew, Max, Eric, and Carissa, in age-order). He joined Ris in Rhy'Din after a few months. Eric is the Vice President of Hawthorne Enterprises, the family company (eldest brother Matthew is the president; Max is a doctor). When I started playing him, he was coming about a year off having been left at the altar by his fiancée, Melissa. He started out as a flirt, but then I let his angsty side out. He met and fell in love with his sister's best friend, Virginia Westin, and their relationship was full of all kinds of angst and twisted-y-ness. PB: Ray Romo

Anya Grigorev / Phoenix

Dee had invited me to join her GPSL, Agents of War, a sort of sequel to a previous GPSL she'd been in. The character I picked up was the Russian operative, Anya Grigorev, codename Phoenix, the awesome hacker chick. She had a love / hate / everything-in-betwen realationship with Latino operative and weapon-man Charlie, codename Bullet. Oh, god, the Phoenix / Bullet relationship was just glorious, and Phoenix was a wonderful character just on her own. The youngest Agent in the group, she had stuff to prove to the others, so she would fluctuate between nearly throwing Bullet to the ground to ravish him and yelling at him about how they were supposed to be working. She had a wonderful temper and was prone to throwing anything that wasn't either a.) bolted down, or b.) in some way necessary for her computer to function. She had a habit of cursing and insulting people in Russian, and she and Bullet could go from "I hate you, hold still so I can kill you" to "oh God I'm going to rip off your clothes right now and ravish you madly" to "get the fuck out of my face right now" in one point five seconds. PB: Claire Danes