I'm an Equal Opportunity Idiot

Austin Osman Spare. 

Yeah, I knew the name sounded familiar. It came up in discussions with Lisa about chaos magick. Not long ago she was very excited about her discovery (or rediscovery) of chaos magick. She told me about him and showed me pictures. I saw, I listened, but I retained no more than a fuzzy memory. Later I read an account of him in Crowley's biography, which inspired a character concept for Wizard's Wrath. Maybe I was just too high at the time to make the connection, but like I said, the name rung a bell. Fast forward two weeks. I performed the LBRP next door then meditated for 30 minutes. I then listened to a Speech in the Silence broadcast where the name came up again triggering that fuzzy memory again. I said to myself: Self, you should go back next door and actually take a good look at his artwork. I found his young photo on his wikipedia article and was amazed at how his facial features looked like the character I had visualized. 

No sooner did I mention this to Lisa and she started again, with the usual eye-roll attitude. That would've been fine if I didn't pick up on the emotional weight behind her every word and gesture. She gets really incensed when she shares some reference or knowledge with me, and I don't absorb it right away, only to "find" it weeks or months later. She insistently misquoted me: "Look what I discovered" when in fact I was just enthusiastic about finding it in a new light. I'm aware that as attentive as I could be. I'm also know that I don't get really psyched about something just because she tells me I should be. This has been the source of many arguments between us and I'm fucking tired of it. This is such a long running quirk of mine that I'm actually angry that she still hasn't made peace with it. All I can say is "I know this is a thing, and I'm working on it."

I think I know what fires her frustration along. She ascribes a personal choice to me being an "idiot." As if I deliberately dismiss her because she is whimsical. This is a long-running paranoia, and no matter how much I assure her that's not the case, it keeps coming back. For the record, I'm am an empiricist. That means I respect demonstrable results. She has demonstrated the success of her ways time and again. I DO NOT dismiss her, but I also don't always get her, or even remember everything she shares with me. She ranted about remembering a petty conversation I had with her last night about a game - but that was last night, not two or three weeks ago. I'm not about to grill her about the things I try to share with her, because it's futile. She'll either come upon it on her own or not. That's how I work, anyway. But I digress. I want to help her understand that I don't just not listen to her, I don't listen to anyone! The moment she makes it about her, the hamster wheel will keep spinning and she'll just get angrier. I am an equal opportunity idiot.

Anyway, that was rather unpleasant and I have to mind to read any further on him at this great magician right now. Maybe some other time, when my brain isn't apt to associate this great man with a petty and unpleasant old discussion. 

New Main Characters for the Ascension Series.

So I've decided to completely resign two of my characters - Capilla and Finan.

My young friends may have been fine players in D&D, but theirs were the lamest pair of characters. It really mystified me why an otherwise creative role-player gave me such a shit character in Capilla. I thought she was nine, and not four years old. A cat raised by ogres? Really? Finan had a very generic backstory. He could've been great if played well, but I wasn't impressed. Nothing about him is memorable, save things I introduce to make him passable. The mysterious silent guy trope is overdone and unsuitable for this role. It's enough for Volen, the mystic archer in The Heist, to become canon.

Replacing Capilla is Alessa, young priestess in the Sisters of the Moon. She is about twelve years of age, pale complexion, and a long jet-black curtain hair falling to just below her hips. She styles it differently depending on her chosen mantra or prayer. I'll need Lisa's help with details for styles. Like Capilla, most of her priestess powers are of an emotional nature, for such is the nature of The Moon. Most Sisters of the Moon are adept in this lunar school of magick, but Alessa is unusually gifted among her peers (Thus fulfilling Merlin's prophecy which Lucius believed applied to him).


Replacing Finan is Edwin, misfit apprentice turned anarchist warlock. Son of a wealthy lord, he forsook his family estate in order to pursue chaos magick. He had to get by on wits and hard work. He began using magick to get immediate results, like money and jobs, sometimes shady ones. We meet him in Port Everlast as a graduating college student, living and working at the Linfang Inn. He may or may not have had a complicated relationship with Kithri Lionfang. I haven't decided if he is an extrovert or an introvert, or if he wears a mohawk. I think he is covered in tattoo and piercings. He is either a short human or a hafling. Either way, he hates the establishment. He criticizes the "Great Order", calling it an elitist establishment pushing their agenda in world affairs. He should be a hero to the rebelling young atheists of our age.

This is it for now, more notes coming at later posts, I'm sure.