emony @ Deleted Deleted

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a_player @ September 13 2004, 15:53:40 UTC

Hi there! It's definitely okay. >:D<

You might hate me for this, but in truth I didn't do very deep research about eating disorders - I looked up some basic stuff at the very beginning, but after that I'm pretty sure I mostly just winged it. This is probably pretty obvious... looking back, I should have really gotten my cards together, but I wasn't sure where it was going to go, really.

But I did feel really strongly about doing the issue justice as a real problem that people get, that doesn't go away overnight, because from what I do know of eating disorders, they are often life-long battles. I am pretty sure the storyline simply got started by Lavender and Parvati going on a diet together, but of course, Parvati never got into it the way Lavender did. I never thought about it in a sense of, "Gosh, what a great storyline! ^_^" but rather, "Wow, this is getting serious. If this is an eating disorder, I hope I can portray it without glamourising it or making it seem like something only teenybopper teenagers get into." Although, I guess I did enjoy tackling the issue from a writing standpoint and I thought it was a sensical journey for sunshine and rainbows Lavender to take, especially at this point in her life.

Thanks for the questions!

cadeyrn @ September 13 2004, 15:33:38 UTC

I think your take on Lavender has influenced other takes on her *cough*storge_space*cough* -- do you think so? Is there a super secret connection, or one I just totally missed because I don't always follow NA and Nraged as closely as I could? :)

a_player @ September 13 2004, 16:01:15 UTC

Hehe, I have never looked at storge_space (but I've seen it mentione a lot), and I don't want to sound like I am tooting my own horn, here, but I think NA has had a really strong influence on a lot of RPGs, whether they realise it or not. NA has a lot of blatant copycats - we were always (and are still) getting notified about rip-off journals that use NA-specific stuff (like Millicents who sign their entries and comments "M.B." and write in the same style, or people using our Quidditch players' names). I know sometimes I forget whether something happened in NA or in the books, and game canon starts to get blended in with book canon, so I'm sure a lot of these are unconscious sorts of things. Uh, but some aren't, for sure.

As for storge_space, they are supposed to be a funny game, right? So if they are parodying either canon Lavender or NA Lavender then it's totally cool with me.

Anonymous @ September 13 2004, 16:18:49 UTC

Storge_space is actually very consciously trying to resist the influence of NA on its member's mental canons. It's a difficult task, though, because it was started by a group of nragers...

--a former s_s player

cadeyrn @ September 13 2004, 17:03:29 UTC

That's what I thought might be the case. The fandom seems so similar. And I can see that they'd try to resist the influence.. but I can also see them parodying it as well, which, to me, is perfectly reasonable -- NA is big enough and well known enough.

a_player @ September 13 2004, 17:11:40 UTC

Hm, well good luck to them!

nannyo @ September 13 2004, 15:52:09 UTC

Lavender never failed to move me, while being somebody who I would have been irritated by had I been at school with them. SO congratulations on making one of the less central characters so in depth and interesting.

I was particularly interested in Lavender's friendship with Neville, and how her homophobia ended up damaging it. Do you think Lavender would have come to heal the friendships she damaged with her prejudice?

Thank you
N.

a_player @ September 13 2004, 16:08:12 UTC

That's exactly right! I would be really annoyed with her in real life too. I really tried to make Lavender somewhat horrifying at times and that's why she was fun to play.

I miss Lavender getting on with Neville! They were sweet kids! I would hope for Lavender that her eating disorder and also her brief time as Draco Malfoy's "BFF" was a learning experience, but for Lavender, it takes a while sometimes, and I wouldn't be surprised if it took a lot more to get her to change her mind about the things she finds "ewww" or ugly or anything like that. She needs more real life experience, but she has a caring heart that's generally in the right place and she has the potential to get over it and open her arms to everyone.

sistermagpie @ September 13 2004, 17:27:15 UTC

Lavender!!! *jumps up and down*

Really, I'd just love to hear how Lavender thought about everything that happened in the game. But I'll try to get it down to some highlights.

*Could you tell us a bit about her parents' divorce? I know it was sort of tied to her eating disorder, wanting to be small again when things were happy...but did it happen after she'd started dieting? I didn't have a good sense of what they were like as a couple before then so I wasn't sure exactly how Lavender was reacting?

*I felt so sad for Lavender when Parvati went to India and she was stuck feeling sad at home and running around the block.:-( What was that summer like for her?

*WHAT was she thinking with Draco??? I mean, he'd always been openly mean to her in the past. What's your take on their whole interaction. Did Draco, to your knowledge, have something personal against Lavender besides the sparklies?

* What was the attack like for Lavender? I was cheering for her protecting those younger children. How did that happen for her?

* How disconnected to reality was Lavender? ;-) I mean, how did she see things in her house there towards the end; how people felt about her, what her friendships with different people were like?

*What do you see for Lavender in the future?

* How'd she feel about that visit to Dean's house? I seem to remember her loving Dean's parents (such a happy family--if you're straight!), but did she get the reason she was there?

*Was it painful for you to be playing a character who was so left behind? I mean, Lavender sort of got stuck and regressed just as other characters were growing up. I always felt like she must be very lonely.:-(

* Finally, was the school actively doing anything to help her before she broke her arm? It seemed like she was sending out pretty big signals and the faculty was aware of it but not acting, maybe they didn't know how?

Finally, I just wanted to say THANK YOU THANK YOU for Lavender. I liked her so much, even while knowing people probably wanted to strangle her at times. Having been to college, I did live with girls like that and I could definitely believe what she was doing. Lavender is now a favorite of mine even in canon. ^_^ ^_^ ^_^!!!!

p.s. I love pink.

a_player @ September 17 2004, 22:11:11 UTC

Woo, okay! It's taken me ages to buckle down and get to all of these questions! It's an intimidating list, you know! So:

* Well, they just wasn't getting along, it was a very typical divorce, nothing exceptionally dramatic, but Lavender felt it was her fault and that she has the power to make things right again but forcing things back to what it was like before. Which, to her, meant being her parents' little perfect girl. Emphasis on the little and perfect. She was pushing herself to excel in both school work and of course, starving herself half to dealth. She wasn't doing this consciously and thus didn't realise how irrational she was.

* Lavender didn't really talk about this but she spent her holidays being shared between her parents. They were already separated at that point. She kept a lot of that to herself because she felt like a failure and was embarrassed.

* Haha, okay, the thing with Draco. She always thought he was A HORRIBLE BOY, especially after he killed Trevor, and really disliked him and was hurt a lot by him, but at the same time she loved Scorpio Nespoir, who was obviously the Muggle Draco Malfoy from the Martin Miggs parallel we had running. It, of course, was that really teenybopper type of attraction, very safe and all that, so when Draco suddenly seemingly started to like her and suggested (for his own purposes of course) that they be BFF and take tea together, it was an agreeable change and she was sort of lacking friends at that point so she glommed right onto him, and unsettlingly enough Draco and Lavender did have some things in common, like a bit of intolerance toward people a lot different than them. Lav of course was pretty homophobic in that "ew, gross!" sort of way. She had fun playing M.A.S.H. and all of that kind of thing with him but I can't say she was all that surprised when he pushed her away after all. I knew Draco had a personal vendetta against her, but Lav didn't realise it, ever.

* The attack for Lavender - well, it's so hard to imagine how things like that must really be, you can never fully imagine how something so horrific is when you haven't been through it, so it's hard enough to try and imagine that you are experiencing a Death Eater attack when you are just yourself. Lav is a Gryffindor and I really just wanted to remind people of that, and I think it was somewhat symbolic as well - her protecting the younger children - because she so depserately wanted things to be normal and happy and idyllic like they were when she was a child, and I can see her wanting to protect other children just as if she were protecting her younger self from the pain of growing up and seeing how ugly the world can be. Not that I wanted her to do something noble and selfless because it was symbolic but I sort of see that it is in hindsight.

* Lav's always been slightly disconnected from reality. Or maybe she just saw things in different shades than other people did, and through a very narrow mind dictated by how things SHOULD BE instead of how they WERE. She did have a lot of friends in Gryffindor, like Neville and Parvati and even Hermione. Harry came to see her when she was in the HW too, and Lisa was very blatantly friendly to her in that sympathetic way Lisa had. So I think that while her friendships took a knock by her behaviour and she was lonely for the friendship she had with Parvati prior to her eating disorder taking over her life, I don't think she ever thought she was annoying or that anyone hated her.

* She really, really thought Dean liked her romantically. And she was really happy. She didn't catch on till much later, partly because she didn't want to. Denial is a great coping mechanism, she feels. She loved Dean's family and even fantasised about being part of a complete family again, so the whole thing was a very big blow to her.

a_player @ September 17 2004, 22:11:46 UTC

* It wasn't painful for me, but I did feel sorry for Lavender at times 'cos I know how it can be. But not too sorry, because I also was frustrated by her personality as much as anyone else was, at times. I don't think she was regressing at all, she was just dealing and living with growing up and all of the hard knocks of it in a different way. She was lonely sometimes, yes, but it was her own fault.

* The school wasn't doing anything to help Lavender and I think it's both that the school didn't know what to do and if it was within their bounds to step in and do something about her, and also the plain fact that Lavender is hard to deal with. Even if the school had stepped in she would have found ways around what they would have tried to do for her.

Whew, that's a lot of questions. Sorry it took me so long to answer them! I'm really glad you liked Lav - I love all of the bit characters like Lav, Parvati, Ernie, and Justin so much now just from NA's characterisations, it makes me love them in canon even more. Thank you!

P.S. I am wearing pink right now!

sistermagpie @ September 18 2004, 01:23:17 UTC

Thank you!

I just read my question list again and wow, I did ask a lot of questions! So thank you so much for answering all of them so completely. I didn't mind the wait at all!

Anonymous @ September 13 2004, 19:53:02 UTC

As a person fighting an eater disorder myself, I've always been curious: what inspired you to let Lavender suffer through one? I found it so interesting and I am very glad she fought through it. You made her situation very realistic, at least from my point of view. I loved the part in one of her wonderfully pinkish entries that said "I am growing my boobs back too because those make some clothes cute". That was the best line I've ever heard, and it was true too if you look at the changes you go through when you are going through this sort of (horrible) thing.

I liked how I could relate to Lavender in a way that this disorder was caused by some rude comments. Although people may not know what they're saying can affect people, it is true and that is what drove me to the crazy idea of "body image" being one of the most important things, hearing that I wasn't skinny, or that I was "just right", "not skinny or fat", "chubby" drove me insane. Even the tiniest thing, the pressure of being thin or a certain weight can

Did you research eating disorders a lot before you brought in this storyline? If you did, congrats to you because you really did make it seem real. A lot of people suffer through binge eating disorders, anorexia, and even more little ones that are not well known but DO happen to people. I am glad it was in the game and I am grateful because it still helps me with this fight.

Thank you, thank you for such a wonderful Lav. ^_^

Love,
-a N_A reader.

Anonymous @ September 13 2004, 19:57:25 UTC

Oh, btw. I didn't finish that sentence:

Even the tiniest little thing, the pressure of being thin or a certain weight can make a person get these disorders or become obsessed with losing as much weight as possible just to fit into a skirt and look good. Before they know it, they're looking at the mirror and they look worse than before.

Okay, done now. Just had to say that.

-a N_A reader.

a_player @ September 17 2004, 21:47:43 UTC

Hello there! I am very honoured if you thought Lav was wonderful, or that her situation with her eating disorder was realistic, especially since you are fighting an eating disorder yourself. (Good luck! You can do it!!!!) I didn't to much research, I'm sorry to say, I mean I did a bit, but I didn't monitor what I was doing all the time to see if it was really realistic. Lav was definitely a victim of a lot of cruel comments from Draco Malfoy for the entire game, and she was never really a girl who was respected as having any sort of brains, either, so I thought that it made sense for her character to deal with a problem of this sort. She will probably still be dealing with it in the years to come as well, and I hope she will stay strong, and that you will too!

<3

ratsel @ Deleted Deleted

Deleted

a_player @ September 17 2004, 21:37:08 UTC

I love you too! (",)

jgoreham @ September 14 2004, 18:28:49 UTC

!!! I stop following NA for a few months, and it ends? wtf?

Seriously though, were there any people that you knew who inspired your Lavender?

a_player @ September 17 2004, 21:36:27 UTC

Well... we missed you too much to keep going.

Really, no, there weren't any Real Lavenders, except for trying to sort of imitate people that are sort of into anime and use all of the ^_^s and the 9.9vvv and all those very creative emoticons. I tried to make her frustrating and sparkly without losing her humanity and that was about it. ^_~

dragonelle_fics @ September 14 2004, 20:24:40 UTC

Hi, Lavender's player!

No questions, just <3<3<3. Lavender's journal was the one that got me addicted to NA-- every time I saw one of her posts on friendsfriends, I ran over to nraged and the other journals to check out the context of whatever was happening to her. All the blinkyblinky graphics and song lyrics and apparent shallowness that usually frustrate me in a journal made Lavender seem like a real teenage girl with real insecurities, and that intrigued me. In retrospect, of all the characters in NA, Lavender was probably the one I ended up caring about the most. I was so proud of her when we heard how she protected the children during the attack!!! *sniffle*

<3<3<3!!!!!!!!

Anyway... thank you thank you thank you for Lavender. She was just wonderful.

a_player @ September 17 2004, 21:33:46 UTC

Hi! Thank you for liking Lav so much. All of those blinky graphics were so fun but so frustrating, it always took hours to do a Lav entry, they were really like doing art projects. Thank you!!!

devimelete @ September 15 2004, 22:02:50 UTC

What gave you the general idea that Lavender be potrayed as bunnies, sparklies, and rainbows? Also, how does Lavender thinks about Professor Snape and his relationship with his, erm, familiar?

a_player @ September 19 2004, 22:17:37 UTC

Hahaha. I just wanted to play a plebe, and it came easily to me. There wasn't much roleplaying involved, har har. Lavender is convinced that Snape is a softie at heart who really loves pink just because of how he is with the little kitten. ^_^

digitalmeowmix2 @ September 16 2004, 00:44:42 UTC

:-) LOVE <3

and thanks!

a_player @ September 17 2004, 21:32:32 UTC

Love right back! ^_^

tabiji @ September 23 2004, 11:04:56 UTC

Hello Lavender's player!

If you check back, I'm asking everyone:

For the NA t-shirts, what are your favorite quotes from your own character, and any other NA characters?

Thankyou! <3

bentley @ September 30 2004, 09:44:29 UTC

Haha, I am so late. BUT. I MUST KNOW. ^_^

Lav used a lot of smileys 8-| are you a big smiley user too? :-? I often kind of saw Lav as parodying the omgteeniebopper users :D and then suddenly yahoo smileys were in vogue :> did this affect your smiley use?

Oh god, I'm so shallow.

Did you have fun trying to find pictures of pink rainbow pony princessy things? I certainly enjoyed looking at them, I confess.

<33333333!!!!!!!!!!!!