intelligence + occult: the naming of names

I believe in the power of names.

I believe that in naming a thing, one comes to better understand that thing, and takes a degree of power over it.

How I think about people, the names I use for them, either inside my head or in public, shapes my understanding of them. Sometimes people's names change. Sometimes they have several, depending on what part of them I am interacting with. But the names area always important, and are always consciously chosen.

I wrote earlier about what I call my damaging ex. Normally, a name comes to me immediately. It hits me about the head and shoulders, and I know that's who they are. But for him, it wasn't the same way. At least, not now.

 Before, when we were something else, he was my Chrysalis Knight. He showed me who I was, who I could be. He helped me find my Kith and my House. (Pooka Golden Balor, if you wanted to know). He helped me transform.

It wasn't till later I found out he was just transforming me into what he needed me to be. But that's not the point.

I don't call him by name. In the real world I mean. I don't say his name, because I don't want to allow myself to give him part of my power, the power that would be spoken with my breath. But I had to look through my source books to find a name for him now, here. Still, I'm pleased with what I found.

As The Tall Blue Man, he is never satisfied with a story, because it is never a new story, because it is all trite, and banal, and insipid. And that name gives me power, through understanding its nature.

I'm currently calling myself Crash.

It's an oddly apt name, though I didn't expect to have adopted it quite so fully.

It's the name of my teenage superhero. She's a technopath, a supergenius, and the daughter of two big name super heroes, known for their tenancy to punch first, and think about it never. She's always been a letdown to them, and doesn't believe in her own heroism, or even competence. You'll probably hear a whole bunch about her.

And, even with the overtones of catastrophe, I'm taking her name for my own. For now.

There's another name that will probably be here a lot. I thought I might at least put it in writing, while I'm talking about naming things.

What I call him isn't his True Name. I don't know that yet, though I think I'm starting to get a shadow of the shape of it.

I call him Technomancer. Here, online, occasionally even in the real world. I am in love with him. As much as that scares me, it is a true thing, and I am trying to accept true things. He loves me back, and its a kind of love that I don't really understand, because it doesn't hurt, and it doesn't demand, it just surrounds and holds me.

I like it, even while I am afraid of it.

But this is about names. The name I use for him isn't one with a great deal of mystery, but it suits, and it makes me smile.

Come to that, he makes me smile.

But that is another story.

composure + persuasion: the superhero in my head

My gaming group is playing this game about teen super heroes right now. I've never really been very into comic book stories. First I found them hard to read, then, after all the cinematics, it seemed like comic fans were way too into them. I mostly agreed to play the game because it was what the other gamers wanted, and I was so thrilled they were willing to play again, what we were playing didn't matter.

But this game, and its imaginary people, have taken over my life, in ways that are intensely positive.

The big one is that one of the characters has become the voice of my internal hope. He's become the not-exactly-angel on my shoulder that reminds me to look out for the best, and to try to find the good in the world, even when things seem pretty damn dark.

He's shiny.

Well, technically he's Splendid.

He doesn't have super powers, but he's a superhero anyway, because powers aren't what makes someone a hero. It's what they do.

He wears his heart on his sleeve, and strives to follow a true Heroic Code, even when that Code is inconvenient, or could be circumvented without repercussion. He's thrilled by everything, from someone accomplishing something new, to meeting a really-truly super. He jumps into situations where forethought might serve him better, but that same enthusiasm tends to see him through undamaged. He continually puts himself in harm’s way, because it is the right thing to do.

He also has very little filter, and almost no understanding of sarcasm when it is directed at him

And he's inside my head.

I used to consider myself incredibly optimistic. I'd believe people really wanted the best for the world, and would do what they could to make the world a better place. I believe that even "negative" actions were motivated by misunderstanding, or pain, or....

But the Tall Blue Man didn't believe the best of anyone. He believed that everyone did what they did for themselves, and only for themselves. That at their core, the real person inside someone would always hurt other people, because the "true self" needed to be allowed to show, and the "true self" hurt people because that was how people worked. It's complicated. The rules for showing love, and what was love were...confusing.

Regardless, I worked hard to believe the worst. To prepare for the worst. But now I don't have to anymore, and it's hard to come back.

That's where Splendid's voice comes in.

I'm finding it's easier to listen when it's not me talking. When the sounds in my head aren't coming from me, exactly, but from a hero I believe and trust in.

Yeah, I know he isn't real. But hearing him tell me that tomorrow will be better, that this is just tonight, and if we can just keep going a bit longer, things will lighten up... I can listen.

Too, when the voice is his, then I'm not being vain. I have a hard time with vanity and selfishness, but when I hear Wonder Boy telling me I don't suck, it's easier to accept. Even if it's me at the bottom, the fact that it filters through his voice lets me think that maybe I'm not awful. Maybe I'm worthy of actual, outward-directed love, even if people have not always been kind to me in that regard.

So. I've got a super hero in my head.

He reminds me to be gentle to myself, to be gentle to people around me. He reminds me that tomorrow's going to come, that the sun will rise, and that I'll probably be happy again, so why not hold on to see. He whispers in my ear that people care, and that I'm allowed to care for myself too. He knows how to get me to come down, when the anxiety is so big, and loud, and my brain won't shut up.

I'm ok with this. Even if he's an imaginary person, even if he's my own voice, putting it in blue spandex makes it a lot easier.

manipulation + intimidation: naming an antagonist

Names have power.

One of the reasons I identify so strongly with the Lost is because they understand this too. This is the name I have chosen for my ex. This is how I will see him, in this place.

The Tall Blue Man

"In Arcadia, the Tall Blue Man could make the trees applaud and the rivers weep with his renditions of the classic stories. Of course, he never made up his own tales — the True Fae lack that capacity. But he could retell them with such skill that the Gentry from all over the land would ask for their favorite tales, over and over, and the Tall Blue Man was happy to oblige. Pride was his undoing. 

...There were no new tales, he said bitterly. Everything “new” was just an old story with some new dressing. 

...He travels the world in an old...asking those he meets for “a story.” ...If they tell him a story, he invariably judges it unworthy, a mere reimagining of something that he’s been telling for centuries. 

The Tall Blue Man wants nothing but to go back home and tell his stories again. The people in the world wouldn’t appreciate his craft, and so he has nothing but contempt for them. He has killed changelings, mortals, vampires, mages and even werewolves in his time, but he has yet to find his elusive original tale. It might not even exist, but the Tall Blue Man refuses to face that possibility, because it means he’s stuck here forever."

--Autumn Nightmares

wits + wyrd: Contract of Omens 3, Reading the Portents

There have been some very radical shifts in self concept recently, which I'll talk about (probably at great length) later.

But I wanted to note that when I was making my starting stats, I realized that my Court had shifted.

For years, I identified as Summer Court. I have a Summer Court wreath tattoo.

But when I was writing this up, I came to understand that I'm really not driven by anger, or the kind of passion that fuels Summer.

Really, the Court of the South, the Court of Song, or the Court of Ecstasy was a much better fit.

"Life is chaos and passion. Life is also art, and art needn't be comfortable. The Lost of the Vermilion Court do not try to connect with humanity, but instead exult in being changelings. They do not deny any emotion, whether it be love or hate, hope or despair. Instead, they endeavor to feel it so keenly that it nearly destroys them."

I went to look up the wreath for South, and, well...

I got my Phoenix tattoo almost 5 years ago. Before everything. Some sort of fate had an eye on me even then.

When I saw the Southern wreath, I thought it looked really familiar. I'd actually brought the phoenix portion into my tattoo artist. I hadn't realized it, because the phoenix had been snipped out of the wreath in the picture I used.

I guess the Ink Brush Court had its mark on me back then as well. Fascinating how omens work.

wits + socialize: writing backstory

I have never played Dungeons & Dragons.

I'm a gamer, I've been playing make believe since I was in high school, but I've never actually rolled a D&D character.

My first game was Vampire: the Masquerade. As a wanna-be goth 16 year old, it was so much cooler to pine artistically than to throw down with a sword and plate armor, so World of Darkness became my thing. I've been playing ever since. Later, in grad school, I managed an analog game store for three years. Now I run/play on alternate weeks at my home, with a group of gamers/writers who are fascinated by collaborative story telling. Currently, we're all pretending to be angsty teen superheroes.

Changeling: the Lost is the game of my heart, even before I really understood my own story, as the transition out of, and transformation through abuse that is the heart of its narrative resonate with me. That probably should have been some kind of foreshadowing.

Street cred established, here's the deal.

I'm 36. I'm a woman. I'm "creative" or "artistic" or whatever euphemism we're currently using for highly emotional, reactive, and not always great at sorting out what's good for me. I pay my bills on time, have my own place, generally keep up on dishes and laundry, take vitamins, and invest for retirement. Since I went to college, I've been in two long term relationships, married once, no kids, three cats. Generally, it looks like I'm pretty good at being a mature adult.

Except...not so much.

My parents did their best. I was...sensitive...even as a kid, so I imagine I can't have been easy to raise. I was told I pretty much cried non-stop until I could talk, which I proceeded to do in full paragraphs. Apparently, self-expression has always been kind of important to me.

But, their best wasn't amazing? There are things I'm realizing now, many, many years later, that were actually very not ok. It took 36 years to even start to imagine that they might not have been ok, and I'm not handling the world-view shakeup well. But realizing that there were many basic needs that were not met is helping me to comprehend things that came later, with other people I've loved.

Because I don't have a good track history with relationships.

My first relationship/marriage was great. Mostly. Sort of? We started dating the summer out of our freshman year of college, and were together till I was 31. My ex-husband is a truly remarkable, wonderful man, but I'm realizing now, after being divorced for 4 years and a bit, there were some things that were...less than great. Things I'd just dismissed as the cost of being in a relationship. There's that.

The other relationship, the one that ended about 8 months ago was...not great. In fact, it was basically everything that Lifetime movies and after school specials warn you about. Everything I was supposed to be too smart, too perceptive to fall for.

But that's not how things work.

I'm out now, but looking back, the relationship was 3 years of lessons in why I am not good enough, why I will never be good enough, and all the ways I need to change to be worthy of being loved, and learning how to love in return. It was 3 years that left me with clinically diagnosed PTSD, and a whole lot more trust issues than I thought I had.

I'm healing. But it's taking time. And gaming is helping. So is writing.

(So is a remarkable man who I have, against all odds, fallen in love with, but we'll talk about that later.)

I'm going to use this space to write about healing + gaming, and how being imaginary other people for a while is helping me to figure out who Real Me is. How the language, conventions, and rules of role playing games are helping me to conceptualize and make sense of what happened, why it happened, and where I go from here.

Just so you know, there will be frank discussion of abuse--physical, mental, emotional, sexual, and verbal. There will be discussion of sexual consent, exploitation, and what you probably could call rape. There might be talk of self harm and suicidal ideation. I'm not going to gloss it over. I will be as gentle as I can, and try to make sure to lead in with a content warning.

There's also going to be explicit discussion of game mechanics. So, be ready.

It's just...over this past half a year, I've found that it's easier to understand myself when I can relate it to a schema that speaks to me, and role playing, with its variety of systems, rules, and work arounds is a way I can make sense of things.

I'm doing better. A lot better than I was even a few months ago. My dark times are fewer, and of shorter duration. But they happen. Often, they happen totally unexpectedly, and for reasons I can't pinpoint. I have panic attacks, and flashbacks, and it's totally awesome.

But despite isolation by myself and people who used my loneliness as a weapon, I've managed to put together a Motley of people who give a damn, and who haven't been driven away. I've surrounded myself with caring, articulate individuals who are ok that I'm a little broken, but putting myself back together.

So. Here goes.

Roll initiative.

starting stats