September 12, 2005

Maps. This guy goes to a lot of trouble to create maps of places that doesn't exist.
  • Nice one!
  • That's funny, he made a map of the island of Breda, which does not exist, but I used to live in a town called Breda, which is in the south of the Netherlands.
  • Heh. What a nutjob. I wonder if he was just using a random name generator from existing place names. Many look familiar.
  • These maps shine iwth quality. For the digital maps I can guess where the typefaces came from, but I wonder what software he used to design them... Illustrator? I think an equally interesting exercise would be to design 16th/17th/18th century maps and show how the fictional land changes as the Industrial Age sets in and the road network crops up. Maybe one region was populated by monsters/barbarians but was later conqured and tamed.
  • >:| Not a nutjob.
  • I used to do this. Then I discovered girls.
  • We like girls.
  • Indeed.
  • These kinds of stupid comments infuriate me. I'd like to reach out of the computer monitor and rip your bloody arms off.
  • Well you can't. Ya boo sucks. If it helps, I actually like this stuff, and have seen several other artists using fake / imaginary maps in their work, not least Simon Patterson's The Great Bear. However, I still reserve the right to make stupid comments. I've even seen you do it sometimes. So give us a kiss, you great big man.
  • Yes, give us a kissy-kissy, you big lug! (Now I know what gets Chy going, this is going to get soooo much more fun...)
  • Let's do it! Do it 'till it squeaks!
  • I'm squealing already! Oh, 'squeak'. Right. Seriously, though, someone came up with this map showing a dream TTC subway. This map of a 'fifty billion dollar baby' actually got some serious debate going, concentrating largely on precisely how poor the city is.
  • Whilst Chy is preparing to ravish us, he might also like to look at the work of artist Layla Curtis, who creates collages, amongst other things, from real maps. [Flash] I hope his sheets are clean.
  • Looks like Chy's getting ready to fist the 'fisto. Should I be worried? Kissy-kissy..?
  • Not the fist!
  • Get yer bloody hair cut!
  • Layla's got some nice stuff, there, kit. Pathological, but nice.
  • That was a bad hair day.
  • Yes, that will do for photos of you for the moment, thanks.
  • Hurray for kitfisto! There was a Layla Curtis hanging in the lobby of where I used to work and I couldn't remember her name to post to this thread. It's quite odd to look at, you assume a place from the general shape but then you look at it and it's clearly not what you thought, an interesting point about physical and political geographies.
  • Yeah, cos your real name's Sue. Yer big girl.
  • Great photo.
  • Indeed.
  • Who is it?
  • That would be the late Man in Black, Mr. Johnny Cash. I have that photo tacked up on my little "inspirational quotes" bulletin board.
  • That shot's from backstage at one of his prison concerts. The photographer called out, "Hey, give us one for the warden!" Then forty years later it went to that famous American Recordings ad. That used to be my desktop background. Then it was Tom Waits on a bus.
  • I think these maps are pretty damn cool, and it's pretty damn admirable the level of dedication, detail, and forethought put into each one. But the guy who made these maps is definitely the biggest nutjob on the entire planet. The mothership will be pleased when I report this discovery.
  • Pucker up, Chy, it's sweet sweet lovin time...
  • *sings* Your own [ker-twangy-twang] personal [ker-twangy-twang] Chyren... Someone to hear your prayers, someone who cares...
  • These would be awesome accessories for a RPG campaign. My inner D&D geek drops mad props.
  • This thread fell into a burning ring of Chyre.
  • Moth! I didn't know you sang!
  • Hey -- what's with the image change? Why is angry Chy replaced with a state trooper? Maaaaan, if I could change my submitted stuff, I'd come across as so much smarter than I do...
  • Grand maps! Excellent find, tellurian! Agreed, the very thing for role-playing games. Or for a writer to hand a story on. Tolkien used to draw maps -- and pictures -- of non-existent places, aa have many others. Creating things is fun -- imaginary worlds, languages, creatures, people, space ships, songs, movies, libraries, or whatever. And this guy is really good at maps.
  • Maybe I can Google up a society for creative anachronism dedicated to an RPG game of this fictional land. Then maybe Capt Renault will have to concede that the mothership will be less than impressed.
  • The large image of Johnny Cash flippin' the bird and the smaller version with the text "fuck you troll" are borderline NSFmyW. Is there a way I can turn off images on MoFi? I, for one, do not appreciate them.
  • I think it's hillarious that a handful of MeFi (a site you'd have to be a dedicated member of an internet subculture to post on) wannabes have the authority to call someone who operates out of the periphery (like they do) a nutjob. This is a form of art. If you want someone to piss on, pick on someone who made money off replicating semiology, like Warhol.
  • I second techsmith's request (sort of). Although I do apreciate such ribaldry, I was almost totally busted just now. Let's keep it clean, people! Or else we need to offer members the option for turning images off.
  • *sniff* I detect the aroma of sockpuppuet... BTW, have you checked out his Roadmap Cover Galleries?
  • Well, maybe you two whiners should get back to work and not slack. If you gonna waste time on the internet on company time, then take the bumps as they come. Don't make me take the fall for it. If you got firefox, use the block images thing to block shit from my site, cos I don't link to stuff mostly less I'm hosting it. Whiney ass bullshit I expect from techsmith, not from Koko.
  • Jesus Christ, Chy. You're being an even bigger asshole than usual. What gives?
  • It's my birthday.
  • Mine was yesterday.
  • I am going to spend a lot of time composing antidotes, treatments, and cures for diseases that don't exist and then put it all on a website.
  • That'd be pretty cool, bernockle. Just don't self-link.
  • I have a feeling that bernockle's webpage will contain exactly one formula to act as anti-inflammatory, purgative, painkiller, laxative, antacid, antibiotic, vaccine, and rheumatism cure.
  • /wonders
  • Back to the original link, I think it's kind of a cool idea: maps as art, form completely removed from function.
  • Happy birtday you old fart...
  • What a friend we have in Cheeses!
  • Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmenthal.
  • Call yourself an editor, do ye? Tut.
  • Happy birthday, chy! Let me know when kit is finished giving you his sweet, sweet lovin'. I'll pass you a pre-moistened towelette.
  • If you gonna waste time on the internet on company time, then take the bumps as they come. Don't make me take the fall for it. I'm asking a reasonable request. You're talking out your ass. There's a big difference.
  • What's all this about a sockpuppet?
  • Watch it, peeps, or I'll goatse your asses!
  • That TTC map isn't very good - really wasteful. The Beaches and Lakeshore don't need a subway - they are already really close to Bloor and have excellent streetcar service. Where they need a bloody subway is in the North West (Rexdale, out to Humber) and the North East (Scarborough and North York) and all along Finch - buses jam packed, so many cars it takes an hour to go 1 or 2 miles near Dufferin - but that's where poor people live, so it will never happen. Instead we get the useless Sheppard line. Old mayor used to live up there.
  • OK, all parties are hereby ordered to listen to 20 hours of Phil Collins. You will have 90 days from this date to complete the session at an accredited RIAA Listening Center. If you fail to show proof of attendence, you will be scheduled for a hearing before a Monkeyfilter judge.
  • I'm asking a reasonable request. You're talking out your ass. There's a big difference. Now, now. There's no need to be uncivilized about it. You need to accept the fact that not everyone will see things from your fucking retarded point of view.
  • Is it time for kittens? Be nice, people. Anyway, designing maps of imaginary places actually looks sort of fun. It's another way to write fiction, except for people like me who can't write. I always wanted to be a map geek. One of the projects from high school I remember most clearly as being fun was creating a map of the island in Lord of the Flies. We can discuss the image thing elsewhere.
  • Taking a break from work and am not sure what's going on in these 60 replies, but I will say that I used to do maps like these when I was 13-15. I had projected some sprawling "gold rush" of sorts into the Canadian arctic, and I did a series of maps like this, designing road networks, cities, and airfields. I have no idea what I got out of it (and such sprawl in the arctic certainly conflicts with my adult environmental views). But it was a neat mental exercise. If anyone wants to see them, they're at my other house across town... I'll gladly nab them this evening and scan em in. Another odd thing I did when I was 12... some friends and I were dumpster-diving for Playboys & Hustlers at an overseas AF base, and amid the paper rubbish I found some internal Pan Am operations timetables. It inspired me to set up an imaginary airline networked across the Pacific. I worked out distances and timetables for an imaginary fleet of 707s and DC-8s. Again I don't know what I got out of it, but it was an interesting exercise for me. I have Aspergers Syndrome, go figure, and the girls came soon enough.
  • I was joking about the goddam birthday. I also have Aspergers Syndrome and have made many detailed maps of nonexistant places, it's one of my things, which is why I get pissed off at people saying that is the passtime of a nutjob. Rather be a nutjob than a ratracer.
  • You were jok-- When the dancing girls show up, you don't know anything about it, you hear?
  • I wasn't joking about my birthday tho...
  • ...I get pissed off at people saying that is the passtime of a nutjob. Yeah, seriously, surfing the internet in any regular manner for random links is the pastime of a nutjob. Sheesh.
  • /frowns
  • Well, I've done considerable map-making, language-making etc myself. In my corroded wee heart, I regard 'nutjob' and similar terms as complements of high order, hence my including -wacky in my monkey-name.. It's the folk who can't find ways to entertain themselves, and have to rely on others to do their imagining for them that I truly pity. Somewhere, kicking about the book-clogged rooms of this house, is a book titled Maps of Imaginary Places, if ye enjoy this sort of thing, I think it's still in print. rolypolyman, I'm sure I'd enjoy seeing your maps when ye get around to putting them online.
  • Thanks, I'll do that, though my webspaces are down because the L.A. power blackout took out Dreamhost. I'll go get them anyway in case it comes back up.
  • It's the folk who can't find ways to entertain themselves, and have to rely on others to do their imagining for them that I truly pity. Yeah, beeswacky, you must have read some Borges, no? I really suggest The Book of Imaginary Beings. And for all the "nutjob" callers: do a google for maps of imaginary places you'll find a lot of people are making both unconventional and conventional topographies like the ones that were posted. Of course, you might want to read this instead. From the googling I noticed imaginary cartography seems to be a big theme in childhood education.
  • Codex Serafinianus.
  • Yes, InsolentChimp, have read Borges, who first came to my attention back in the sixties when he was being published in English as an SF author. Thanks for the links. One of the fun things about having borders and margins is the sheer delight one can take in breaking them, as when the dragon flies partway off the chart's edge or the shi[ sails across a hitherto-inviolate boundary.
  • =ship
  • I was joking about the goddam birthday. I hereby redact my previous image.
  • Codex Serafinianus. Yeah, that reminds me of Borges as well.
  • Having a degree in geography, and having taken many a cartography course, I recall being given assignments where we were required to create fictious maps (otherwise it was quite easy to find existing data sets and map base info). I gathered my first real use and understanding of Adobe Illustration in such projects. I'm assuming that this person probably had similar projects (seeing that the site is hosted from U of Mich) and quite enjoyed creating the fictious maps (hell, if you like to make maps, you *like* to make maps). Myself, I preferred making maps using real-world data, but that was just me... Hmm, should I share my map of every single bus stop in Charlotte NC with pedestrian walking-distance boundaries? Heh... Really, it looks quite lovely! I would call it art!
  • Let me preface this with an excuse/apology: I'm currently on some medication that is making me very tired and very loopy. I may descend into the unintelligible here under the influence of it. Apologies if I stop making sense. Or maybe I should be congratulated if, at any point, I actually manage to make sense in spite of my medication. I used to - and still do - design maps of imaginary places, as well as details of the cultures that inhabit the imaginary places, their language, even develop recipes for what cuisine they would have. All of this has become some of the background work I do for fiction I write, though I began by doing it for its own sake. I used to be considered a nutjob for those exercises of imagination. It's amazing how that tune changes when it's a part of detailed background work for the setting of fiction. The work was suddenly legitimized in their eyes, because it had a purpose beyond itself. Without that purpose, the work I did was considered pointless to absurdity, so I must have been a nutjob to ever do it. The fiction writing, on the other hand, has never been considered the action of a nutjob. Even though I've never been published, the feeling is that I might be someday, and be paid for it. Even if I do not choose to shop a story around, it's still okay, because I'm getting in practice toward the eventual recognition of publishing and getting paid. I'm also considered a nutjob for the work I do on Celtic knotwork. Why invest all that time in something complex and requiring that much work, if I don't have a commission for it, and am not getting paid? These same friends have, at other times, complained about what they see as the increasing commercialization of art and what they see as sell-outs among artists of whatever stripe (writers, painters, musicians, etc.) They should be doing what they do for art's sake, and not try to fit themselves into what society dictates as acceptable in order to make money off of the work they do. This seems like a large disconnect to me. Does art have a specific purpose? Should it? Is the point of it to make money, or is someone a sellout because they are doing the work in order to make money? Is it necessary that there at least be a potential for profit for the work to be considered legitimate, or is it worthwhile simply as an expression of a creative mind regardless of medium or form? I've often wondered these things in connection with the way the segment of society that I have personally known seems to react to art. And it made me curious to know what you Monkeys think.
  • I agree with beeswacky: practitioners of such arts should wear "nutjob" as a badge of honor, if the term is to be used. Today's nutjobs have a way of becoming tomorrow's great artists. Why look at me. Yesterday I was sitting in my own poop, and today I had to call a plumber. Inspiring example? No. But still, I have a point here, which is that maps are neat.
  • Christopine speaks wisdom. Again, this issue makes me boiling mad to the point where I will physically fight people. Why? Take a fucking look at the world. The fantasy cartographers are not the problem, people. As far as sanity goes, they are the measure for the rest of ye.
  • Christophine, sorry. Apologies for typo.
  • Chy, it's cool. I assume when I choose an unusual handle online that it will be consistently typoed. I've reached the point of responding to anything that looks like it could be translated into my handle. No apologies necessary. Besides, how could I be annoyed with that when someone says that I speak wisdom? ;)
  • I'm curious, Christophine, which comes first, the fiction or the map? Do you need to have an idea of what goes on in a place and who might inhabit it in order to visualize it or does it work the other way around-- you create the space and then fill it with inhabitants and events? I imagine it works the same way with music-- does one write the music or the lyrics first? I'm amazed at the imagination of people who can create cities and countries and worlds with their imaginations to the point that they can draw them and make them somewhat concrete. I love maps anyway, regardless of whether or not they show a "real" place. Am also jealous of sugarmilktea's coursework in cartography...
  • I agree w/ Beeswacky -- 'nutjob' can be quite a badge of honor. In my personal experience, truly outstanding artists are often people who try and pass for normal but just can't pull it off.
  • Does art have a specific purpose? Does it have to be experienced by someone else to be art? Why else would map-boy publish his musings?
  • This thread is quite reassuring. I'm glad I'm not the only kook on the block who had imaginary worlds floating about in her head. Were everyone else's imaginary worlds mostly Earth-like (gravity, flora/fauna, climate etc...)?
  • Why else would map-boy publish his musings? This looks suspiciously like a published musing.
  • Is the point of it to make money, or is someone a sellout because they are doing the work in order to make money? Is it necessary that there at least be a potential for profit for the work to be considered legitimate, or is it worthwhile simply as an expression of a creative mind regardless of medium or form? Almost all artists throughout history have received money for their work. I have a bit of a pet peeve about the whole "muse" theory of creativity which I have mentioned before- people seeming to think that artists sit around and daydram until they're magically given a work of art. In reality, it's hard work like anything else is hard work. Most people want money for their work and need money to support themself and their family. Of course art doesn't have to be commerical, but most of the great art in the history of the world has been created inside some kind of constraints- "absolute creative freedom" probably doesn't exist and might actually stifle creativity if it did. (the maps are cool though)
  • Classical music composers were the equivalent of pop music composers today. They were commissioned by patrons to create pieces for special occasions, and given salaries by the aristocracy. Many poets were also "kept" by patrons, and did write paens to those patrons so as to be kept in favour. I would contend that the concept of "art for art's sake" is a relatively new one. Michaelangelo didn't spend years painting the Sistine Chapel for free, you know.
  • I like to draw islands, too. I'm just not as good at it, and I tend to make them smaller so I can fantasise about it just being all mine.
  • It's when one stops enjoying what ones does, when one has no joy left to 'waste' time in some non-lucrative work when one goes wacko.
  • OK, I'm done with Chy. Who's next for the 'kitfisto lovin' experience'?
  • I was totally addicted to Sim City. Doesn't the popularity of that game prove that we like to create imaginary places? I spent more time on the maps in that game than anything. Didn't really care so much about those annoying little people...
  • InsolentChimp - one of my good friends shares your birthday. So, on the bright side, I never forget his birthday these days, and make a point of letting him know that. Sort of like having a birthday on Christmas - nobody remembers that it's your day, they just remember the day itself. For me, I like to think of Sept. 11 as "Phil's Birthday" because it is a much nicer way to think about that specific day. I hope you have friends who do the same for you.
  • I wonder how long this thread would have got if I'd written 'person with too much time on their hands' or 'obsessive dude' or some other similar comment rather than 'nutjob'? Chyren, you took my offhand comment waaaaay too seriously. I like some of the guy's stuff. I just kind of reacted. I remember having to mapmake from the mind in school. I love maps. But to me this just seemed a bit over the top. I guess I'd have more appreciation if they were antique map-like (or did I miss some - I just skimmed a few). That's just my usual predeliction anyway. The semantics of 'nutjob' would be an interesting discussion (well I suppose it was discussed a bit). A bit like nerd - originally a perjorative label but it got turned around.
  • I like to draw islands, too. I'm just not as good at it, and I tend to make them smaller so I can fantasise about it just being all mine. I've done the same on all different levels, from imagining the ideal studio/room to house to a whole island or colony. I used to make treasure maps as a kid too. I'd do it on brown paper bag paper, wet it, crumble it, leave it out, burn the edges with a magnifying glass to make it look old. It would be awesome to have a tool for people to create their own little town/country/world online, and to display all of them in a gallery. Have them make a map, write about the culture, language, main industries, etc.
  • bibliochick: For me, what came first has changed over time. In the beginning, I only did maps, with no thought of who might be living in the places I was inventing by doing so. I'd always had a love of maps and sometimes wished I'd been a cartographer during the age of exploration. I was always the one who volunteered to do the mapping when playing an RPG. After a while, the maps I made outside of gaming began to seem like they needed more than just the map, and I began to invent the cultures that went with them. The current project, however, began life because I'd invented a particular culture - well, one tribe of nomads on a plain that supported several roaming tribes - and everything grew from there. It was originally meant as a gaming world, but the truth is that I hate running games. I'd rather be a player. Consequently, none of it ever got used. It continued to be developed in my head, and has been under continual development to some degree for something approaching twenty years now. It has become the basis for the fantasy fiction I write. I'm also currently writing everything up to give information for other writers in an online writers' group I belong to. We do cooperative fiction writing, though until now it has been either historical fiction set in ancient Greece or science fiction. They're interested in adding a fantasy world, and I've offered them mine. Write-up is taking quite some time, however. Close to twenty years of development means a lot of information!
  • Maps, huh? When I was 12/13 used to design imaginary governments/corporations complete with large elaborate brightly colored block diagrams of the heirarchical structures. How nutjobish is that?
  • I did the same thing, kamus. Went through an imaginary map-drawing phase, then a stadium-designing phase, then governments, then girls. Which is pretty much where I remained since then.
  • Maps - pfft! quidnunc created his own friends! posted by Billy at 05:30PM UTC on September 13, 2005 Yeah! Nice one quid! You're the best. posted by Jilly at 05:30PM UTC on September 13, 2005 Love you quidnunc! Love you always! posted by Jizzface at 05:31PM UTC on September 13, 2005 Thanks guys. I'd be lost without you.
  • "Chyren, you took my offhand comment waaaaay too seriously" If you had a grandfather who was a psychotic, a mother who has antisocial personality disorder, an uncle who is schizophrenic, and were an Asperger's Syndrome person who made maps of fantasy geography as a passtime, you'd probably take that comment a little seriously, too. Harmless creative activities like this don't deserve that kind of label, AFAIC. Not when real nutjobs are doing real damage in the real world.
  • *Brain... spinning... out of ... control...*
  • /slap
  • techsmith: IMO, a piece doesn't necessarily have to be seen in order to be considered art. I myself have a number of pieces that no one has seen, for a variety of reasons. I would still consider them art. Publishing something as this guy did his maps is, I think, less about aiming to make it fit into the category of art than it is about the desire to share creative efforts and/or get some recognition for the hard work that went into them. And who doesn't like to get some small degree of recognition for hard work? I confess I've certainly done it here on MoFi, posting links to pictures I photoshopped (I do not consider them art per se, but thought others might find them amusing as I did) or to a midterm project that involved references to various Monkeys. Primarily, I wanted to share them in the hope of amusing people I've come to enjoy seeing here on MoFi, but there was also an element of wanting recognition for them. I would guess that map-boy had similar motives. alnedra: You are far from the only kook on the block. Maybe all of us kooks should get together for a block party, and see what kind of world or worlds emerge from it. ;) The worlds I design are, indeed, mostly Earth-like, though I've designed some that aren't as alien worlds for science fiction stories. Mostly, I tend toward your typical fantasy scheme when designing worlds, though I add my own twists on things and do invent at least some fantastic flora and fauna to go with the Earth variety and the typical fantasy ones.
  • Chy: So you'll get my back next time people go all "LOL NERD LOL" over cosplayers or D&D players or the like, right? Yeah, I didn't think so. Well spoken, though. It's a little sad when people get so vitriolic about the ways other people harmlessly pass the time. Perhaps they need something to occupy them, like... oh, never mind. ;) As for the "I found girls" comment, I'm on the verge of a Curious, George about that. Does chasing / finding / keeping girls really take so much time and effort that it precludes all other hobbies? I'd be sad and weirded out if a guy told me "yeah, I used to love building ships in bottles / drawing maps, but I had to chase you, and that's a full-time job, ya know." Err. Thanks? But then, I'm a nerd and expect people to continue having hobbies even after they couple up.
  • "So you'll get my back next time people go all "LOL NERD LOL" over cosplayers or D&D players or the like, right?" Yeah, because being called a nerd is just as bad as someone saying you're mentally ill, right. ;) "Does chasing / finding / keeping girls really take so much time and effort that it precludes all other hobbies?" Only til you get married, then free time opens right up again. Plus there's this thing chicks do, if for one nanosecond you stop paying attention to them for any reason whatsoever, they will say something like "you love that ship in a bottle/computer/dungeons and dragons more than you love me!" summoning vast waves of guilt upon their victim from seemingly nowhere.
  • I mean the attitude that people who have hobbies you don't like are worthless. Anyone who throws mental illness around as an insult is an asshat whose opinion means nothing, anyway. Plus there's this thing chicks do, if for one nanosecond you stop paying attention to them for any reason whatsoever, they will say something like "you love that ship in a bottle/computer/dungeons and dragons more than you love me!" summoning vast waves of guilt upon their victim from seemingly nowhere. You're dating the wrong girls, then. Boys, even nerd boys, like the same pool of insecure girls who've caved intensely to social pressure who play shitty mindgames like that. Their peers, on the other hand - we the platonic friends who are unsexy as hell - are like "Okay, more PS2 time for me. Clear your calendar Friday for dinner, though, aright? Or the beatings start." So okay, understood - insecure ninny-girls take that much effort, and I already knew that men love insecure ninny-girls.
  • Does chasing / finding / keeping girls really take so much time and effort that it precludes all other hobbies? Wurwilf- the finding a mate thing can be so interesting that it eclipses all other hobbies, for a time, at least. Chatting with mysterious strangers in the hopes of discovering one who will make Real Life satisfying/meaningful/fun is both scary and addictively exciting. /happy e-dater
  • Btw - non-ninny, me, I think.
  • Wurwilf, Chy has been with the same power woman for the last 15 years. Check out his profile for a picture of her singing in front of her band. At least in my opinion, guys who are happily ensconsed in a satisfying relationship find it funny to opine on what "chicks do" even though they've been out of the random chick environment for half their lives or so. But, the jokes don't necessarily reflect their real loyalties.
  • That doesn't mean I haven't shagged other women during that time.
  • hehe just kidding :)
  • They were farm animals.
  • My husband does love his Linux box more than me. I'd be upset about it, but I love the Sims more than him.
  • It's my wife's birthday. I made her breakfast for dinner. Now I'm going to get offline. Because it's her birthday. And it's time for her to "unwrap her present." By which I mean the pop-up books I bought for her collection. And by "pop-up book collection", I mean THE HOT ANAL SEX.
  • jb, you and me both. It wasn't the hubby that precluded my hobbies (playing computer games among them) but the two offspring we spawned. Let that be a warning!
  • Alnedra, I wouldn't say art for art's sake is a relatively new phenomena until we can actually figure out why those Lascaux cave paintings were painted. Even "ritual" use can be considered "art for art's sake" if the "art" is the ritual, no? And yes, caution live frogs, most of my friends see it (and easily remember it) as my birthday, which isn't such a good thing when the phone won't stop ringing on a mean Sunday morning afternoon hangover. Good times...
  • My ex seriously, nonjokingly did love the girls he roleplayed with on AOL five years previously more than he loved me (and I'm not assuming; he told me this), so I don't take kindly to that joke. I'm sorry; it's my own raw nerve. Don't mind me. So that part wasn't necessarily literal, or not always. I'm glad to hear that. It's good to hear that people don't actually give up everything they love in order to be what other people want them to be. I know it's a miserable situation to put yourself into. So ON TOPIC. Map-drawers and bottleshipbuilders of the world, do your thing - not every waking moment of your life, but do what makes you happy. Someone out there thinks it's keen. Don't believe the stereotypes about what girls want. Of course, you may end up alone anyway, but chances are it's not because of the hobby.
  • Some more fictional maps.