Här kommer vår officiella krönika över den Witchcraftkampanj vi (Vavva, Ymir, Pendragon och en fjärde spelare som icke är medlem) spelat på de senaste månaderna. Den har hunnit bli sanslöst lång, så jag kommer att posta den kapitel/spelmötesvis med några dagars mellanrum tills jag kommit ikapp spelandet.
Upplägget är enkelt. Min karaktär Jean skriver dagbok, något hon också går ingame. Jean själv är en sjuttonårig förhärdad gatråtta som drömmer om en boxningskarriär som arbetar natt som utkastare på en skabbig bar med en minst sagt ljusskygg arbetsgivare. Så, lets shoot!
I haven't got laid in eight months. That is not a shocking period of time for me, even though Twyla gasps and wastes an unnerving amount of time trying to fix me up with someone. In my line of work you get pretty fed up with sex anyway, the sleezy guys trying to pick you up at closing time, Mr Morrissons business associates thinking I'm up for grabs just because Mr Morrisson wants to get off on the right foot with them. I think it's all pretty pathetic and it's scary to witness the moronic stuff otherwise sensible people are willing to put up with just to not having to spend the night alone. Me, I like to spend the night alone. No way I'd want some jerk in my apartment rumbling through my stuff when I'm in the bathroom, trying to fuck me when I'm halfway asleep or, in a worst case scenario, tries to clean up my mess or wants to see me again. I went through all that with Michael a year ago, and I'm not that eager to do it all over again. Michael was a good guy I met at the club, but since niether of us ever figured out what we actually wanted, it all ended up the same way it started after a month or two: Quietly, uneasy and we both still pretend it never happened. I don't like having people close, and that more or less rules out even the shortest of short term relationships. I'm perfectly happy with dying alone at the age of thirty. Some people fall in love, I think I just grew out of it. You can only work to please for so long before you're sick and tired of it. Guys wants girls who are cute and wimsy and laugh at their jokes, and no guy has ever been worth changing for. I see love as a kind of teenage phase you have to get through to end up as an actual individual whenever you get out of it. Some people never do. I pity them.
Saturday the 26 of august 2006
Ethan shows up about two with chineese take away. He's hungover of course, chats around about some girl he met at the pub the night before. I don't pick up her name, but obviously she was dynamite in bed and he's seeing her tomorrow night.
"Oh shit Jean, you should have seen her tits! And she even left me a bagel when she left. I think I might be in love"
Yah, sure. Ethan in love, that would be a sight for sore eyes. Next week there will be another girl from another pub and I'll have to listen to it all over again. He never, ever mention Twyla. They went out a while five months ago, and now none of them even acknowledges each others existence. That's Ethan's usual way of doing things. If you pretend they don't exist, they suddenly don't. We have kind of an arrangement, Ethan and me. I don't talk about his affairs with the rest of the family and he don't talk about my lack of them.
"And put some flesh on that hard ass of yours. No wonder you never get laid, there is nothing there to grab" he says handing me the fried noodles and chicken.
Thank you. Family, always there for you.
"You're not a virgin, are you?"
"Shit no. Who do you take me for?"
"The girl who is to hard to fuck?"
"Fuck you"
"Sorry, that would be illegal"
We'll that's the way we chat. Ethan has a sense of humor, I don't. He's disturbingly hung up on sex, I'm not. I guess he got it all and I got nothing. But he seems to like it here, otherwise he wouldn't come over here a few times a week to give me my daily insults.
When Ethan's left to meet up with some friends I go down to Blacks to meet up with mine. Ellie is there of course. She works more or less all nights a week to feed her white trash unemployed boyfriend, and even I can see that she smokes to much and probably would be better off without him. It's saturday and I have a whole night of "fun" in front of me. Jack doesn't even say hello, he just puts a beer in front of me and grunts. Candy is in tonight as well, and even though her name is really lame I like her. She's got guts and a way to talk back that I love about her and even though she looks like a total bimbo I'm guessing she actually has a brain and, occasionally, uses it. She greets me with a smile and a wink and I smile back, like you do to someone to nice to diss out totally. Willy is already sitting in the corner and he tries to catch my gaze and smile his creepy little psycho smile, but I try not to look at him. Yeez, that guy creeps me out. If I ever get really desperate I might take him home, just because I wouldn't feel bad for a second when I throw him out before he even got his clothes on.
Mr Morrisson enters the bar about midnight, relaxed, confidant and with a small tick in his left eye that tells me he's not really sober. He hands me pack of smokes, like he always does on saturday nights and make a smug comment about my stamina, which I reply with a casual "well, too much for you to handle". Yep, I take shit from Mr Morrisson I wouldn't take from anyone else, cause I know he is a middle aged scum bag and I like him anyway. One hand in the wrong place and he's down, and we both know it. The night is noisy as usual. I throw out a guy who tries to start a fight in the bar and knock out a creep who tries to push Candy up a wall and feel her up. Your casual saturday night.
Saturday the 2 of September 2006
I show up early to watch Ellie open the bar. Big Tom is already sitting at the counter, waiting for his beer. He's a fat guy, somewhere in his forties and tried to grab my tit once, a stunt he probably won't try again, unless he's a bigger idiot than I thought. I sit down in the corner by the bar, waiting for Mr Morrisson to show up, which he does, eventually. He is dressed in his usual black suit with his usual blue polo shirt. Nothing much ever changes about Mr Morrisson, he has the same haircut on his wedding picture as he has now, a couple of years after the divorce, and the greets me with his usual "hello lil' Jean", to separate me from the other Jean who is a stripper at the joint down the street. He sits down at my table, tossing me a pack of smokes. "You ready kiddo?" he asks with a smile. "It's saturday. It's gonna be a rough night". "Am I ever not ready boss?" I reply, lighting up my first fag for the evening. He gives me a smug smile that I pretend I don't see. If I show any sign of understanding what it is he implies, I'd have to bash his teeth out, you know, for the principle of it, and I don't like to knock out the guy who gives me money.
Sunday the 3 of September 2006
I show up for training a quarter to three, even though I don't start until a quarter past. I like just hanging out here, watching the newbies make the mistakes I don't to anymore and the oldies avoid the ones I still do. Bill comes down from his office to keep me company. He has retired from teaching groups. Nowadays he only has time for the promising upcomers, which I suspect should be taken as a compliment. We hang out by ringside, watching Sam and Collins go their rounds and he hands me his water bottle the way he always does, bottom first. "You ready kiddo?" he asks. "It's gonna be a rough day". It's the second time someone asks me that in the last 24 hours and I get a strange feeling in my gut, as if everyone is in on a secret except me. Then I shrug. It's probably just a coincidence. Sunday afternoons with Bill usually are rough, so I guess he's right.
First Sunday of the month is the official Spring family dinner, and people tend to show up, even though no one really wants to be there. This is one of the rare occasions when we all could be there at once, which gives me unpleasantly mixed feelings. I know that Bobby will always be on my side, and so will Ashley, even though no one listens to her cause she is just a child, blah blah blah. Ethan is always something of a wild card. He does not approve of my lifestyle, but then again, he really can't stand Anne, so if she starts picking on me he is likely to back me up just to make her shut up. The fun thing about these dinner things is that they always end up in a fight. Usually it's mom and dad screaming in the kitchen, but from time to time it has been me and Anne or, on one memorable occasion, Ethan and Bobby. But I have a bad feeling about this afternoon. I'm not exactly at my best and Anne has that cramped up smile on her face that tells me she just can't wait until she gets the chance of telling me how pathetic I am. She brought her kid and her boyfriend. I smugly notice that he is checking Ashley out while he has his arm around Anne's shoulder. I really wish her all the lowest, every-day hells of the world. I hope their relationship ends up with him cheating on her with a fifteen-year-old, but if he ever touches Ashley, he is a dead man.
Of course I am dead right. Halfway through the lamb soup Anne turns her fake smile to me and opens her mouth.
"So, Jeany, no boyfriend yet?"
"Nope"
"You sure you're not bending the wrong way?"
"Quite so Anne, I would for example not touch your fat ass with a stick"
Dad isn't listening. He never does, or if he does, he pretends not to. Moms' face is frozen in terror. Anne gets stunned for a few seconds, seeking her boyfriends eyes for back up, but he is too occupied staring at Ashley's breasts.
"That must be the meanest thing you've ever said to me, you worthless little rat!"
"Rather a rat than a sheep Anne. I won't settle for someone more interested in kids than in me"
I can see both she and her boyfriend are about to burst, so I give them a gentle smile and leave the table. I open the kitchen window and light up a smoke. My blood is pumping too fast, and I need to calm down before I can go back out. Anne can, like no other person alive, drive me insane.
"She only wants you to be happy, you know"
I should have figured that mom couldn't just leave it be. I grunt and take another drag at the cigarette.
"She just wants you to have what she has, a family and a real life. Let's face it, you're not very happy know, are you darling? With that bar job and no one to take care of you. You have always been an independent girl, but everybody needs someone"
She spits out the word independent as if it was some kind of snake rattling in her mouth and, of course, she doesn't stop there.
"It's not surprising you haven't been able to find someone though. What boy wants a girl with short hair and that kind of body?"
She comes up to me, stroking my chin.
"You could have been so pretty darling! Those blue eyes of yours, you have a beautiful face Jeany. Just let me buy you a dress and we'll make your hair and do your eyebrows and then you'll see everything gets easier!"
I've heard all this before, but never this tenderly, never face to face with her hand on my face. I never really knew mom had it in her to get personal.
When we return to the table Anne and her significant other has left and the rest of the dinner proceeds rather smoothly. Ashley is quiet as a mouse, as she usually is at home. When we are alone she is a chatterbox, but in the presence of the rest of the family she sits with her face low and only answer whenever someone asks her a question. No one makes any further mention of what happened, even though Bobby tries to catch my gaze a few times and Ethan is smiling happily. I am truly happy to leave after dessert and Bobby gives me and Ethan a ride downtown. He dumps us off outside my apartment and Ethan hangs out with me for the rest of the evening, he even follows me to work and have a beer at Blacks. "'Rather a rat than a sheep'! You're an eeeevil bugger kid!" It's only Bobby and Ethan who knows about what I do for a living. The rest of the family just heard that I got a job as night time waitress, and I never bothered to update them about my new position. "You know, I have a friend at work who might be something for you. Good looking guy, blonde, well built and his last girlfriend was almost as fucked up as you" You see? I am the only one not having a problem with my singleness.
Monday the 4 of September 2006, right before dawn
I wake up, sweat dripping, beaten as if a national middle weight champion just bashed my teeth out, blood soiling my hands, running down my arm like rain on the streets of Chicago. My hands are stuck between my legs, cramped between my clasped thighs, my cipher hammering with pain. Unable to move, I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling above me. On the dirty, white surface there is a symbol drawn in blood. I close my eyes. I am tired of playing this game.
"Are you ready kiddo?". I'll give her for ready! With a last punch of strength I get up on the bed, take my blood-stained hand and smear a cross all over her symbol. With an irish father it is the closest thing I know of a protective sign. When I look up my hand has drawn a circle around the cross, making my ceiling look more like a pagan blood-bath than a cross over a female figure. I can't win this thing. It's all in my head and it's eating me up from the core. I light up the candles. It always makes me feel better; safe, comfortable, in command.
I need the control of knowing I'm surrounded by fire.
Upplägget är enkelt. Min karaktär Jean skriver dagbok, något hon också går ingame. Jean själv är en sjuttonårig förhärdad gatråtta som drömmer om en boxningskarriär som arbetar natt som utkastare på en skabbig bar med en minst sagt ljusskygg arbetsgivare. Så, lets shoot!
I haven't got laid in eight months. That is not a shocking period of time for me, even though Twyla gasps and wastes an unnerving amount of time trying to fix me up with someone. In my line of work you get pretty fed up with sex anyway, the sleezy guys trying to pick you up at closing time, Mr Morrissons business associates thinking I'm up for grabs just because Mr Morrisson wants to get off on the right foot with them. I think it's all pretty pathetic and it's scary to witness the moronic stuff otherwise sensible people are willing to put up with just to not having to spend the night alone. Me, I like to spend the night alone. No way I'd want some jerk in my apartment rumbling through my stuff when I'm in the bathroom, trying to fuck me when I'm halfway asleep or, in a worst case scenario, tries to clean up my mess or wants to see me again. I went through all that with Michael a year ago, and I'm not that eager to do it all over again. Michael was a good guy I met at the club, but since niether of us ever figured out what we actually wanted, it all ended up the same way it started after a month or two: Quietly, uneasy and we both still pretend it never happened. I don't like having people close, and that more or less rules out even the shortest of short term relationships. I'm perfectly happy with dying alone at the age of thirty. Some people fall in love, I think I just grew out of it. You can only work to please for so long before you're sick and tired of it. Guys wants girls who are cute and wimsy and laugh at their jokes, and no guy has ever been worth changing for. I see love as a kind of teenage phase you have to get through to end up as an actual individual whenever you get out of it. Some people never do. I pity them.
Saturday the 26 of august 2006
Ethan shows up about two with chineese take away. He's hungover of course, chats around about some girl he met at the pub the night before. I don't pick up her name, but obviously she was dynamite in bed and he's seeing her tomorrow night.
"Oh shit Jean, you should have seen her tits! And she even left me a bagel when she left. I think I might be in love"
Yah, sure. Ethan in love, that would be a sight for sore eyes. Next week there will be another girl from another pub and I'll have to listen to it all over again. He never, ever mention Twyla. They went out a while five months ago, and now none of them even acknowledges each others existence. That's Ethan's usual way of doing things. If you pretend they don't exist, they suddenly don't. We have kind of an arrangement, Ethan and me. I don't talk about his affairs with the rest of the family and he don't talk about my lack of them.
"And put some flesh on that hard ass of yours. No wonder you never get laid, there is nothing there to grab" he says handing me the fried noodles and chicken.
Thank you. Family, always there for you.
"You're not a virgin, are you?"
"Shit no. Who do you take me for?"
"The girl who is to hard to fuck?"
"Fuck you"
"Sorry, that would be illegal"
We'll that's the way we chat. Ethan has a sense of humor, I don't. He's disturbingly hung up on sex, I'm not. I guess he got it all and I got nothing. But he seems to like it here, otherwise he wouldn't come over here a few times a week to give me my daily insults.
When Ethan's left to meet up with some friends I go down to Blacks to meet up with mine. Ellie is there of course. She works more or less all nights a week to feed her white trash unemployed boyfriend, and even I can see that she smokes to much and probably would be better off without him. It's saturday and I have a whole night of "fun" in front of me. Jack doesn't even say hello, he just puts a beer in front of me and grunts. Candy is in tonight as well, and even though her name is really lame I like her. She's got guts and a way to talk back that I love about her and even though she looks like a total bimbo I'm guessing she actually has a brain and, occasionally, uses it. She greets me with a smile and a wink and I smile back, like you do to someone to nice to diss out totally. Willy is already sitting in the corner and he tries to catch my gaze and smile his creepy little psycho smile, but I try not to look at him. Yeez, that guy creeps me out. If I ever get really desperate I might take him home, just because I wouldn't feel bad for a second when I throw him out before he even got his clothes on.
Mr Morrisson enters the bar about midnight, relaxed, confidant and with a small tick in his left eye that tells me he's not really sober. He hands me pack of smokes, like he always does on saturday nights and make a smug comment about my stamina, which I reply with a casual "well, too much for you to handle". Yep, I take shit from Mr Morrisson I wouldn't take from anyone else, cause I know he is a middle aged scum bag and I like him anyway. One hand in the wrong place and he's down, and we both know it. The night is noisy as usual. I throw out a guy who tries to start a fight in the bar and knock out a creep who tries to push Candy up a wall and feel her up. Your casual saturday night.
Saturday the 2 of September 2006
I show up early to watch Ellie open the bar. Big Tom is already sitting at the counter, waiting for his beer. He's a fat guy, somewhere in his forties and tried to grab my tit once, a stunt he probably won't try again, unless he's a bigger idiot than I thought. I sit down in the corner by the bar, waiting for Mr Morrisson to show up, which he does, eventually. He is dressed in his usual black suit with his usual blue polo shirt. Nothing much ever changes about Mr Morrisson, he has the same haircut on his wedding picture as he has now, a couple of years after the divorce, and the greets me with his usual "hello lil' Jean", to separate me from the other Jean who is a stripper at the joint down the street. He sits down at my table, tossing me a pack of smokes. "You ready kiddo?" he asks with a smile. "It's saturday. It's gonna be a rough night". "Am I ever not ready boss?" I reply, lighting up my first fag for the evening. He gives me a smug smile that I pretend I don't see. If I show any sign of understanding what it is he implies, I'd have to bash his teeth out, you know, for the principle of it, and I don't like to knock out the guy who gives me money.
Sunday the 3 of September 2006
I show up for training a quarter to three, even though I don't start until a quarter past. I like just hanging out here, watching the newbies make the mistakes I don't to anymore and the oldies avoid the ones I still do. Bill comes down from his office to keep me company. He has retired from teaching groups. Nowadays he only has time for the promising upcomers, which I suspect should be taken as a compliment. We hang out by ringside, watching Sam and Collins go their rounds and he hands me his water bottle the way he always does, bottom first. "You ready kiddo?" he asks. "It's gonna be a rough day". It's the second time someone asks me that in the last 24 hours and I get a strange feeling in my gut, as if everyone is in on a secret except me. Then I shrug. It's probably just a coincidence. Sunday afternoons with Bill usually are rough, so I guess he's right.
First Sunday of the month is the official Spring family dinner, and people tend to show up, even though no one really wants to be there. This is one of the rare occasions when we all could be there at once, which gives me unpleasantly mixed feelings. I know that Bobby will always be on my side, and so will Ashley, even though no one listens to her cause she is just a child, blah blah blah. Ethan is always something of a wild card. He does not approve of my lifestyle, but then again, he really can't stand Anne, so if she starts picking on me he is likely to back me up just to make her shut up. The fun thing about these dinner things is that they always end up in a fight. Usually it's mom and dad screaming in the kitchen, but from time to time it has been me and Anne or, on one memorable occasion, Ethan and Bobby. But I have a bad feeling about this afternoon. I'm not exactly at my best and Anne has that cramped up smile on her face that tells me she just can't wait until she gets the chance of telling me how pathetic I am. She brought her kid and her boyfriend. I smugly notice that he is checking Ashley out while he has his arm around Anne's shoulder. I really wish her all the lowest, every-day hells of the world. I hope their relationship ends up with him cheating on her with a fifteen-year-old, but if he ever touches Ashley, he is a dead man.
Of course I am dead right. Halfway through the lamb soup Anne turns her fake smile to me and opens her mouth.
"So, Jeany, no boyfriend yet?"
"Nope"
"You sure you're not bending the wrong way?"
"Quite so Anne, I would for example not touch your fat ass with a stick"
Dad isn't listening. He never does, or if he does, he pretends not to. Moms' face is frozen in terror. Anne gets stunned for a few seconds, seeking her boyfriends eyes for back up, but he is too occupied staring at Ashley's breasts.
"That must be the meanest thing you've ever said to me, you worthless little rat!"
"Rather a rat than a sheep Anne. I won't settle for someone more interested in kids than in me"
I can see both she and her boyfriend are about to burst, so I give them a gentle smile and leave the table. I open the kitchen window and light up a smoke. My blood is pumping too fast, and I need to calm down before I can go back out. Anne can, like no other person alive, drive me insane.
"She only wants you to be happy, you know"
I should have figured that mom couldn't just leave it be. I grunt and take another drag at the cigarette.
"She just wants you to have what she has, a family and a real life. Let's face it, you're not very happy know, are you darling? With that bar job and no one to take care of you. You have always been an independent girl, but everybody needs someone"
She spits out the word independent as if it was some kind of snake rattling in her mouth and, of course, she doesn't stop there.
"It's not surprising you haven't been able to find someone though. What boy wants a girl with short hair and that kind of body?"
She comes up to me, stroking my chin.
"You could have been so pretty darling! Those blue eyes of yours, you have a beautiful face Jeany. Just let me buy you a dress and we'll make your hair and do your eyebrows and then you'll see everything gets easier!"
I've heard all this before, but never this tenderly, never face to face with her hand on my face. I never really knew mom had it in her to get personal.
When we return to the table Anne and her significant other has left and the rest of the dinner proceeds rather smoothly. Ashley is quiet as a mouse, as she usually is at home. When we are alone she is a chatterbox, but in the presence of the rest of the family she sits with her face low and only answer whenever someone asks her a question. No one makes any further mention of what happened, even though Bobby tries to catch my gaze a few times and Ethan is smiling happily. I am truly happy to leave after dessert and Bobby gives me and Ethan a ride downtown. He dumps us off outside my apartment and Ethan hangs out with me for the rest of the evening, he even follows me to work and have a beer at Blacks. "'Rather a rat than a sheep'! You're an eeeevil bugger kid!" It's only Bobby and Ethan who knows about what I do for a living. The rest of the family just heard that I got a job as night time waitress, and I never bothered to update them about my new position. "You know, I have a friend at work who might be something for you. Good looking guy, blonde, well built and his last girlfriend was almost as fucked up as you" You see? I am the only one not having a problem with my singleness.
Monday the 4 of September 2006, right before dawn
I wake up, sweat dripping, beaten as if a national middle weight champion just bashed my teeth out, blood soiling my hands, running down my arm like rain on the streets of Chicago. My hands are stuck between my legs, cramped between my clasped thighs, my cipher hammering with pain. Unable to move, I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling above me. On the dirty, white surface there is a symbol drawn in blood. I close my eyes. I am tired of playing this game.
"Are you ready kiddo?". I'll give her for ready! With a last punch of strength I get up on the bed, take my blood-stained hand and smear a cross all over her symbol. With an irish father it is the closest thing I know of a protective sign. When I look up my hand has drawn a circle around the cross, making my ceiling look more like a pagan blood-bath than a cross over a female figure. I can't win this thing. It's all in my head and it's eating me up from the core. I light up the candles. It always makes me feel better; safe, comfortable, in command.
I need the control of knowing I'm surrounded by fire.
Roligt att se att någon utanför spelgruppen faktiskt läser.