falcongrrl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
falcongrrl) wrote2023-05-03 04:49 pm
falcongrrl) wrote2023-05-03 04:49 pm
The Beginning: Part 1
The first time I met Bard online was in 2004. A local in person friend, John Boulton, had introduced me to Steven Stadnicki (or Shaterri), who was quickly becoming a dear online friend. Shaterri and I were chatting on a MUCK platform (if you know, you know) and Shaterri said something to the effect of, "I know this person I think you'd like. You both have kids about the same age and you have similar spiritual beliefs." At the time, I was trying to establish a social life - online and off - while parenting small children, which is not the easiest thing to do.
Shaterri and I started hanging out in a space that Bard had created online called Floki's Circle. Floki was a catlike fire elemental character that Bard roleplayed. Floki itself was supposed to be a little slow or dumb, but often Bard's intellect would shine through as Floki asked characters entering the circle naïve-seeming questions that revealed holes in their elaborate plotlines.
Here is one of Bard's many descriptions for Floki:
Floki is catfolk with a touch of fire, adorned with horns and wings. Its fur is like red copper with fine mahogany streaks, its eyes as green and stripey as malachite. Its four horns are wild and forked, in the shapes of flames frozen in mid-leap, different each time you look at them. Its wings are carved from rippling red-orange amber, full of light refracted from unseen fires. Eleven copper anacondas curl from its spine, ruby eyes gleaming, ruby tongues flickering. It has a short mane of flexible golden glass quills, thin threads of light writhing inside them. A splash of green light with teal highlights blows emerald bubbles at you.
Bard was extremely welcoming to me the first few times I dared to enter the circle, both in and out of character. I don't know if Shaterri had mentioned something along the same lines to Bard - that he thought we would be compatible as friends - or if he'd said something more like "Here's my shy anxious friend who's new to MUCKing."
In the end it didn't matter. Soon I became a fixture at Floki's Circle, a place away from the demands of parenting. Bard and I talked in character and out of character, in public in character and privately through pages (direct messages). We quickly became fast friends.
At the time Bard hated talking on the phone, so all our interactions were through text. But then, Bard's wife Vicki and their child Lavender decided that they wanted to come to Florida. Of course I wanted to meet them! We arranged that Vicki and Lavender would actually stay in our house with my husband (Dave), my two small children (Daniel and Ellie), and me. I hadn't talked to Vicki much at all at the time. I only had a picture of her, but luckily she was easy to spot at the airport and looked exactly like the picture she'd sent.
At the time, Lavender was 1 and Ellie was 2. Ellie was in the habit of calling any feminine adult with caretaking energy "Mama." I had to tell Vicki - someone I'd just met - "Hey, my kid will probably call you Mama. I hope you don't mind."
Luckily Vicki and Lav connected easily with all of us. We didn't go to theme parks on this particular visit, but we went to some Disney-adjacent places like The Rainforest Café. We also did mundane things like go to the grocery store and to my son's preschool. My friend and head of the preschool watched Lavender and Ellie so Vicki and I could go out for coffee. We talked about anything and everything.
Vicki and I had similar views but very different personalities. My style of parenting could probably be called slapdash, and Vicki was much more organized. By the end of the visit, we were all eating, napping, and sleeping on Lavender's schedule.
After I took them back to the airport, I cried.
"That's how you know it meant something," Dave said.
Shaterri and I started hanging out in a space that Bard had created online called Floki's Circle. Floki was a catlike fire elemental character that Bard roleplayed. Floki itself was supposed to be a little slow or dumb, but often Bard's intellect would shine through as Floki asked characters entering the circle naïve-seeming questions that revealed holes in their elaborate plotlines.
Here is one of Bard's many descriptions for Floki:
Floki is catfolk with a touch of fire, adorned with horns and wings. Its fur is like red copper with fine mahogany streaks, its eyes as green and stripey as malachite. Its four horns are wild and forked, in the shapes of flames frozen in mid-leap, different each time you look at them. Its wings are carved from rippling red-orange amber, full of light refracted from unseen fires. Eleven copper anacondas curl from its spine, ruby eyes gleaming, ruby tongues flickering. It has a short mane of flexible golden glass quills, thin threads of light writhing inside them. A splash of green light with teal highlights blows emerald bubbles at you.
In the end it didn't matter. Soon I became a fixture at Floki's Circle, a place away from the demands of parenting. Bard and I talked in character and out of character, in public in character and privately through pages (direct messages). We quickly became fast friends.
At the time Bard hated talking on the phone, so all our interactions were through text. But then, Bard's wife Vicki and their child Lavender decided that they wanted to come to Florida. Of course I wanted to meet them! We arranged that Vicki and Lavender would actually stay in our house with my husband (Dave), my two small children (Daniel and Ellie), and me. I hadn't talked to Vicki much at all at the time. I only had a picture of her, but luckily she was easy to spot at the airport and looked exactly like the picture she'd sent.
At the time, Lavender was 1 and Ellie was 2. Ellie was in the habit of calling any feminine adult with caretaking energy "Mama." I had to tell Vicki - someone I'd just met - "Hey, my kid will probably call you Mama. I hope you don't mind."
Luckily Vicki and Lav connected easily with all of us. We didn't go to theme parks on this particular visit, but we went to some Disney-adjacent places like The Rainforest Café. We also did mundane things like go to the grocery store and to my son's preschool. My friend and head of the preschool watched Lavender and Ellie so Vicki and I could go out for coffee. We talked about anything and everything.
Vicki and I had similar views but very different personalities. My style of parenting could probably be called slapdash, and Vicki was much more organized. By the end of the visit, we were all eating, napping, and sleeping on Lavender's schedule.
After I took them back to the airport, I cried.
"That's how you know it meant something," Dave said.