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aumentouThis is a diary entry for my Changeling: The Lost character. It doesn't contain any plot, and though it does contain some of her powers, it doesn't have anything in it I'd be worried about other players knowing, especially since her overpowered radar-o-vision is well known OOC.
A friend observed recently that these games generate a lot of short stories, and that's true at least from my hands. Even though these stories are mostly written for the writing, sometimes I like to read them, which gives me the logical corrollory of sometimes posting them.
As background, she's an ice elemental - still human shaped, but in some senses made of ice. She's also recently become head of the Autumn Court, which is the court associated with magic (as its problem-solving method of choice) and fear (as its resonant emotion).
I'm sat on a park bench, watching families taking advantage of the sunshine. I read their fears, picking up things some of THEM don't even know, or don't admit, they're afraid of. I see nothing unusual, nothing that seems like them, nothing that seems like one of us. I don't see any of us either.
Spring is here, and all the people who were hiding from the cold last week are out and about, laughing and joking and having fun. Getting on with their lives and looking like they feel nothing could ever go wrong for them.
I'm jealous. I admit it.
All the things they want, or seem to want, or are trying to get - that young man trying to impress that young woman. That child asking for an ice-cream. That mother with three children who seems to be just enjoying her sunbathing - all those things are the things that make them real people. Real people who are in touch with other real people. Real people whose lives are made of other people, who do things with other people, who live for, through, and with other people.
I'm not a real person. I haven't been for an awfully long time. Last year the sun made me too hot, so I stopped feeling it. A choice, powered by magic.
Perhaps I'm lonely? I can't tell. I remember reading about it. There was a book about a man who ran a lot. Do I want that, what they have, company?
No, I do not. That girl fears the boy will ask her out. She seems to be enjoying the attention, she presents a face to him that looks friendly, but she fears she will have to turn him down. That father fears that his wife will be annoyed if he gives the child an ice-cream. That mother fears that one of her children will cause trouble, and that her trip will be cut short by shouting and sulking. I don't think I want that sort of company, people to lie to me, to demand my attention, to put weight in trivial things.
I turn to my book. It's about Zen Buddhism, which is a philosophy. The words swim slightly on the page, the sunlight is so bright, so I go and lie down on the grass, putting my head between sun and book.
The book is hard to read. It's hard to focus generally. The air around me sings to me, because I called to it, and the moving shapes of all the people running and playing and strolling are each a distraction, like flickers of movement in my peripheral vision.
I can't focus, so I roll over and close my eyes. I watch the shapes in the air, watch them move, watch the patterns. I move my attention in, and watch one persons lungs inflating and deflating, the organic patterns strangely repetitive, strangely reassuring, and yet never quite moving to the same point as they go in and out. I send my attention out, sideways, up and down, and feel the birds in the air, the currents in the air, slightly thicker patches as they move. I focus again on a cloud of small insects near a bush. Each is smaller than a fingernail, but as I focus I can pick their shapes out in remarkable detail. This power is a gift, sometimes. I wonder what some human artists would give for this, as I look out and down. I see the tunnels beneath the road, first as a line under the road, then as the large and small pipes that they are, then as I shrink the view even more they become huge chasms. Massive looming spaces, cavernous and still.
I refocus on myself, see my own body - examine my own head and the network of tubes running from part to part. All seem to be working, or at least all the air-filled ones do. I focus on my lungs, and see that like the humans, my lungs fill to slightly different points with every breath.
I don't know if that's good or bad. Is it reassuring that I am not just an icy machine, or disturbing because this body is still human enough to die like theirs do?
When the air stops singing I stop calling to it. The power is useful, necessary, and wonderful at times, but it makes it hard to focus. I let it go, open my eyes, and see in colours and visual detail again.
I don't know how long it's been, but the sun still shines and the park is still full. A young man is looking at me as he talks to his friends, blind to the fact that I'm older than his grandmother, and blind to the fact that I'm not in any way what he wants. He just sees flesh, and he's young enough to think this is good on its own. He's scared he will die a virgin.
I realise I've stared at him when he looks away. As he does his fear flickers momentarily to me. Is that good? I don't know that either.
I turn to my book again. I'm not far in, and it's still talking about the other philosophies that shaped zen buddhism. I read for a while, and after four pages a sentence grabs at me, and makes me think. The book says that time is only one moment, ever moving. We have memories, patterns we believe are from the past, so we belive there was a past. We imagine the future, and we imagining it before, so we think there is one. We conceive time as a line, with ourselves moving along it. As we do this, we imagine ourselves constant beings throughout. Our actions and words being conscious choices, that we could make differently if we had a similar choice again. We think that the memories are a record of ourselves - of the things we did. The book says that our minds are here and now. The memories are not our memories, not a record of ourselves. They are a record of another person, a different person, a person who became us.
I read it, and think, and read it again, and think more. I need time, so I lie back and sing to the ice, and see how much ice-cream is left in the van. It's nearly out. I sit up and count the queue. It's not so long, but he'll be nearly out of things by the time he's served them all.
I wonder what the me who existed two hours ago would do. Then I get up and get an iced lolly. It's red and blue, and tastes of sugar and chemical flavourings.
When the magic wears off and I start to feel the sunshine again, I don't switch it back on. I lie there, in the sunshine, until I start to melt slightly. Then I move to the shade. I wonder briefly if the me of two hours from now will curse this me, for getting her dress damp with melted skin, or whether she will curse herself.
A friend observed recently that these games generate a lot of short stories, and that's true at least from my hands. Even though these stories are mostly written for the writing, sometimes I like to read them, which gives me the logical corrollory of sometimes posting them.
As background, she's an ice elemental - still human shaped, but in some senses made of ice. She's also recently become head of the Autumn Court, which is the court associated with magic (as its problem-solving method of choice) and fear (as its resonant emotion).
I'm sat on a park bench, watching families taking advantage of the sunshine. I read their fears, picking up things some of THEM don't even know, or don't admit, they're afraid of. I see nothing unusual, nothing that seems like them, nothing that seems like one of us. I don't see any of us either.
Spring is here, and all the people who were hiding from the cold last week are out and about, laughing and joking and having fun. Getting on with their lives and looking like they feel nothing could ever go wrong for them.
I'm jealous. I admit it.
All the things they want, or seem to want, or are trying to get - that young man trying to impress that young woman. That child asking for an ice-cream. That mother with three children who seems to be just enjoying her sunbathing - all those things are the things that make them real people. Real people who are in touch with other real people. Real people whose lives are made of other people, who do things with other people, who live for, through, and with other people.
I'm not a real person. I haven't been for an awfully long time. Last year the sun made me too hot, so I stopped feeling it. A choice, powered by magic.
Perhaps I'm lonely? I can't tell. I remember reading about it. There was a book about a man who ran a lot. Do I want that, what they have, company?
No, I do not. That girl fears the boy will ask her out. She seems to be enjoying the attention, she presents a face to him that looks friendly, but she fears she will have to turn him down. That father fears that his wife will be annoyed if he gives the child an ice-cream. That mother fears that one of her children will cause trouble, and that her trip will be cut short by shouting and sulking. I don't think I want that sort of company, people to lie to me, to demand my attention, to put weight in trivial things.
I turn to my book. It's about Zen Buddhism, which is a philosophy. The words swim slightly on the page, the sunlight is so bright, so I go and lie down on the grass, putting my head between sun and book.
The book is hard to read. It's hard to focus generally. The air around me sings to me, because I called to it, and the moving shapes of all the people running and playing and strolling are each a distraction, like flickers of movement in my peripheral vision.
I can't focus, so I roll over and close my eyes. I watch the shapes in the air, watch them move, watch the patterns. I move my attention in, and watch one persons lungs inflating and deflating, the organic patterns strangely repetitive, strangely reassuring, and yet never quite moving to the same point as they go in and out. I send my attention out, sideways, up and down, and feel the birds in the air, the currents in the air, slightly thicker patches as they move. I focus again on a cloud of small insects near a bush. Each is smaller than a fingernail, but as I focus I can pick their shapes out in remarkable detail. This power is a gift, sometimes. I wonder what some human artists would give for this, as I look out and down. I see the tunnels beneath the road, first as a line under the road, then as the large and small pipes that they are, then as I shrink the view even more they become huge chasms. Massive looming spaces, cavernous and still.
I refocus on myself, see my own body - examine my own head and the network of tubes running from part to part. All seem to be working, or at least all the air-filled ones do. I focus on my lungs, and see that like the humans, my lungs fill to slightly different points with every breath.
I don't know if that's good or bad. Is it reassuring that I am not just an icy machine, or disturbing because this body is still human enough to die like theirs do?
When the air stops singing I stop calling to it. The power is useful, necessary, and wonderful at times, but it makes it hard to focus. I let it go, open my eyes, and see in colours and visual detail again.
I don't know how long it's been, but the sun still shines and the park is still full. A young man is looking at me as he talks to his friends, blind to the fact that I'm older than his grandmother, and blind to the fact that I'm not in any way what he wants. He just sees flesh, and he's young enough to think this is good on its own. He's scared he will die a virgin.
I realise I've stared at him when he looks away. As he does his fear flickers momentarily to me. Is that good? I don't know that either.
I turn to my book again. I'm not far in, and it's still talking about the other philosophies that shaped zen buddhism. I read for a while, and after four pages a sentence grabs at me, and makes me think. The book says that time is only one moment, ever moving. We have memories, patterns we believe are from the past, so we belive there was a past. We imagine the future, and we imagining it before, so we think there is one. We conceive time as a line, with ourselves moving along it. As we do this, we imagine ourselves constant beings throughout. Our actions and words being conscious choices, that we could make differently if we had a similar choice again. We think that the memories are a record of ourselves - of the things we did. The book says that our minds are here and now. The memories are not our memories, not a record of ourselves. They are a record of another person, a different person, a person who became us.
I read it, and think, and read it again, and think more. I need time, so I lie back and sing to the ice, and see how much ice-cream is left in the van. It's nearly out. I sit up and count the queue. It's not so long, but he'll be nearly out of things by the time he's served them all.
I wonder what the me who existed two hours ago would do. Then I get up and get an iced lolly. It's red and blue, and tastes of sugar and chemical flavourings.
When the magic wears off and I start to feel the sunshine again, I don't switch it back on. I lie there, in the sunshine, until I start to melt slightly. Then I move to the shade. I wonder briefly if the me of two hours from now will curse this me, for getting her dress damp with melted skin, or whether she will curse herself.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 06:53 am (UTC)Very good, very real.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-15 09:48 am (UTC)