Second and Third Week Miscellany

From Igtheme Essay

Altclair is more complicated, especially since the stakes are occasionally lower than in the other two games. Also, I am not sure if there are any villains per se, and there are few pure heroes. Naomi tentatively identified Rashid as a villain, but he'd see himself as a freedom fighter. And he took a risk in agreeing to help rescue Delilah from Mongolia, because he made it very clear that he was a terrorist with access to weapons. The PCs could and almost certainly should have told the authorities (especially after fifth week of Winter Quarter).

Why did they choose to protect someone who, by some standards, was a villain? His goals did not obviously impact on their lives, and he helped them with their goals. It was a combination of gratitude and personal standards of honor. And, Rashid met Josh's standards: In Mongolia, he was vitally important, not so much for the weapons he provided as for his cultural and linguistic knowledge. And, he could be trusted not to betray the PCs. They were not enemies per se.

Sarah Lacey and Iris Monaquin are two women who may or may not achieve villain rank on occasion, depending on your definition. Certainly, both are ruthless. In Iris' case, this ruthlessness was precisely why Justin enlisted her hlep on one occasion. He trusted her to do whatever was necessary to protect Jennifer, her child, and Jido. Justin is also ignorant about the true depths of Iris' ruthlessness. Josh's guidelines apply, nevertheless: They shared a goal, and Iris' help was necessary.

Sarah is a complicated story. She has been an ally as often, if not more so, than an adversary. One reason she is not an outright enemy -- not the only reason, but a significant one -- is that the PCs simply cannot take her on and win. They must come to terms with her, and this might be a corollary to what Josh came up with. If I can take out an enemy, why bother to ally with him? Because he is useful? Well, if I'm that much more powerful, he becomes a pawn, a slave, a blackmail victim -- not an ally.

Also, Sarah's goals, while not entirely clear, have, thus far, not been incompatible with the PCs' goals. Her methods of achieving them have either bordered on the unethical or crossed right over into the unethical, depending on your definitions. But I don't think she has ever been a threat to the PCs' goals.

She has been an ally, and as such, meets Josh's criteria. Justin came to her asking for information, and she was the only person he knew who could get it. He also had reason to trust that she would not betray him, which means not lie to him. Or, as he put it, while Sarah will lie, she generally doesn't lie about the important things.

Ironically, he's currently annoyed with her for taking out her ire on the wrong target, ie, Justin, in a petty way. I think it's the first time he's ever been angry with her or considered her to be unmistakably in the wrong. Not that he plans to do anything about it, other than stay out of her way.

The Altclair PCs are not necessarily heroic. One reason Justin accepted Sarah's ruthlessness is that he's fairly ruthless himself. He's a user, and he'll work with just about anyone who meets Josh's criteria.

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but Naomi quoted one of her stories, where one character says of a school principal:

He's a good adversary, and if you don't value a good adversary as much as a good friend, you haven't done enough fighting to know what you're talking about.

Michael understands this in terms of fencing, but not in other ways, whereas Justin, while he'd deny it to his last breath, understands it completely. In fact, at one point when he knew he was in some kind of trouble, but wasn't sure what, he asked someone to call Sarah Lacey on the grounds that a) this didn't seem like her doing and b) she might object to someone other than her messing up Justin's life. Recently, Sarah commented that having a talent for making enemies can be useful, since one can play them off against each other.

But having a competent enemy means that you can trust this enemy to be competent in your favor on those rare occasions when you work together. This is another corollary to Josh's criteria. One has to trust one's ally or enemy-turned-ally not to screw up. This includes such things as trusting a vampire not to kill an innocent bystander, something which is not necessarily a betrayal of a temporary alliance.

Summary:

To ally with someone:

1.  You must need that person.
1A. You must not be able to dominate that person.
2.  You must be able to trust him or her not to betray you 
    before your common goal is achieved.
3.  You must be able to trust him or her to be competent.

Write Up

Altclair is Naomi's campaign, set at the college of Altclair, which is somewhere in Minnesota. Think Pamela Dean's Tam Lin or GURPS Illuminati IOU. Other source material (that Naomi's not familiar with) might include Elizabeth Hand's Waking the Moon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and most of Charles de Lint. Players are me (Justin Thorne), Josh (Michael Conaway), and Manny (Jim Gaffney).

From the Desk of Justin Thorne

Dramatis Personae

• Michael Conaway - history major, mage
• Ash Wednesday - Michael's teacher
• Daniel Case - my AD (1)
• Michelle Corbet - Michael's daughter by Jennifer, died over intersession
• Jennifer Corbet - mage, sensitive,
• Helen Abernathy - my girlfriend
• Ken Maravitch - welcoming committee of GALA (2)

Second Week Addendum

Mom wants to meet Ash and find out how he can talk to (and lie to!) water. (3) I asked Ash about bringing her over when she comes here for the play, suggesting that it would be a good idea for someone who isn't me to explain a bit more about being a Maker to her.

She says I may not have to go back in "the magic closet" after college, and promised to introduce me to some of -her- weird friends.

Meanwhile, I seem to have been freaking Daniel for a change. He mentioned that he'd like to know who his parents are, so I made a list of possible ways to find out. He made me a deal: I drop the subject until he brings it up, and next year, he'll help me with the History sequence. Helen says I pulled a Justin. I suppose it's better than pulling a muscle. (4)

I've named my sword, and I found out what happened when the police confiscated it. Him, I suppose. He made the officers point him at their heart, but did not hurt anyone. And he likes me. I don't know why, given how I've treated him. It's sort of like having a guard dog.

Third Week Or, Who's that Madman with the Camera?

I should have known better than to think that things were ever settling down. Just when it looked like Michael had himself and his relationship with Delilah under control, and Jennifer was starting to get her life together, albeit with the added complication of being pregnant with her soon-to-be-ex-husband's child --

Everything changed.

It turns out that Jennifer is not carrying David's child after all, but Michael's. No, they have not slept together (or, if they have, she didn't get pregnant this time).

Michael decided that he wanted another Michelle, so he used his magic to make Jennifer pregnant. Ash decided that enough was enough, so he turned Michael's magic off. Just like that.

Jennifer's keeping the child. I think it's wrong, but in her position, I'm not sure I'd get an abortion either. (4)

I was furious at Michael, but also somewhat sympathetic -- that is, I gather that he did not consciously make Jennifer pregnant. It seems that the magic got out of control or something. So, I couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted to punch him (never mind that I'd wind up on the ground before I laid a hand on him) or try to be a sympathetic listener (never mind that he'd tell me to shut up or get lost - probably both), and I doubt he wanted either. So, I implemented the safety valve earlier than expected.

I used up two rolls of film. Got Michael fencing, me as per usual, Sarah, Daniel, Matt, lots of gargoyles, an Econ student (who tried to break the camera over my head), and the Econ buildiing. Avoided Helen, of course. (6)

When I was out of film, I went to GALA to ask Ken for scutwork. (7) I interrupted him kissing his boyfriend, and of course any kind of proper apology for doing a double take and backing out of the room just emphasizes the awkwardness of it all. And on top of it, Ken tried to apologize to me for making me uncomfortable. I told him that just about just about anything would have made uncomfortable just then and aksed for a job requiring either mindlessness or cold intellect, but not tact or diplomacy, since I wasn't capable of either, at the moment. Fortunately, he had a whole bunch of books that needed shelving and alphabetizing. This was exactly what I needed - I must remember to keep GALA in mind as a back up plan when I run out of film. It's a safe place and it has the advantage of being somewhere folks won't think to look for me if I need to get away from everything.

I'm a lot calmer now - up to studying for Philosophy again, at least, if not working on the train. I should be able to handle rehearsals without making my actors too crazy. But avoiding Michael is probably the sensible thing to do.

Footnotes

(1) Assistant Director

(2) Gay and Lesbian Association

(3) Ash drugged Michael with water. It was perfectly ordinary water, but Ash convinced the water that it was drugged.

Justin: You lied to the water? Don't you know it's not nice to fool Mother Nature?

(4) Daniel was born sometime during the nineteenth century, and, if he was telling the truth, was raised in an orphanage and has no idea who his parents are. Justin's list of methods of finding out Daniel's parentage included time travel and consulting Ash. While coming up with ideas, Justin made sure to confirm that Daniel was not his father, since he knew that Daniel had been at Altclair when his mother was there.

(5) Actually, Jennifer did consider getting an abortion, but Michael threatened to kill her. Once all the dust had settled, and both parties were capable of rational thought, I gather Jennifer decided to have the baby after all.

(6) Justin is a Maker, but has gotten dangerous results from making things when angry. But if he doesn't make things, that gets him more frustrated. So, he's taken up photography. At this point, he has three sets of pictures:

1. I have a camera! It takes pictures! These are just ordinary pictures, except for the one of Annmarie the ghost, which didn't show her.

2. Focusing carefully to see what he can see. Things start getting interesting here.

Justin - Justin starts each roll with a shot of himself taking a picture of himself while looking into the mirror. Somehow, the camera subsumes this image.

Michael comes out as a knight in shinning white armor.

Justin (snickering): Yeah, right.

Michael has the original; Justin kept the negative.

Daniel - definitely looked fae. Also extremely sexy.

After some thought, Justin stuck both the photo and the negative, as well as the other photo and negative (see below) in an envelope, and left the envelope under Daniel's door. He did consider keeping at least one of the negatives as evidence/blackmail material, but felt guilty enough about what he'd pulled last quarter and about being less then honest about the issue of his gazette that went postal, so he decided not to.

Besides, he has plenty of material from last quarter. Justin really didn't want to deal with the question of his sexual preference. After all, he's got midterms to study for and a play to direct, not to mention a totally different crisis he scheduled for the end of the quarter (finding out what his subconscious was up to when he accidentally killed his stepfather).

Matt Denkla - appears as a stage magician with showers of stars.

Sarah Lacey, femme fatale of the Theater Dept. - came out looking very witchy, although whether that was because of her or because of Justin is an interesting question.

Donna, the first floor RA - came out looking even sweeter and softer than ever. Justin decided that this means he can trust her.

Helen - Helen looks like Helen, no matter what. She is a nice, normal girl. Hey, there has to be one around somewhere.

Annmarie - came out on this one. Justin put the photo on one of the walls by the forge and probably still has the negative

Jennifer - looks like a dancer caught in midleap, which was not the pose she took for this shot

Jido - came out in dragon shape. Justin gave photo and negative to Jennifer, as she's essentially adopted Jido.

Delilah - there's an odd shadow effect where there wasn't a shadow to begin with

Ken - normal, except for looking extremely sexy. Justin stuck the photo and the negative in an envelope, and left the envelope under Ken's door.

3. Foul mood roll

Justin - appears as a giant holding up a wiggling human by the hair. Ironically, Naomi forgot about that when she described what Justin's model train looked like. It had tiny people, and at one point, Justin did carry one to another part of the train to take care of a panicking elephant.

Sarah - paraphrasing Naomi quoting Harlan Ellison, this shot showed Sarah doing a disgusting thing with a disgusting thing, i.e., making love to something that wasn't human. This is the only one of the Sarah photographs Justin doesn't still have the negative of. Sarah has it, as well as the photographs.

Daniel - as above.

Matt - appeared as Mephistopheles, a role he played in Faustus last quarter. Matt has all the photos Justin took of him. Justin offered to give him the negatives, but Matt declined, so Justin still has them. Matt and Daniel both commented that they might use one of Justin's photos as a yearbook picture, so Justin's discovered a new source of funds. During Winter and Spring Quarter, he saved a fair bit of money from graduating seniors who liked his work.

Michael - appears looming menacingly over Beth, his fencing partner. He was, after all, the focus of Justin's foul mood. Michael got both photo and negative, and I think he burned them, as Justin suggested.

Economics Student - appears in chains with bruises and whip marks. After Justin took this shot, the Econ student tried to break the camera over his head. Justin ducked out of range and snapped a shot of the building. Justin kept both the photo and the negative.

Economics Building - Kinda like Barad Dur, a malevolent place with a door like an open mouth. Justin kept the original and the negative.

Daniel (looking at the photo): Remind me not to take any Econ classes.

Gargoyles - for some reason, Justin had this urge to take about six shots of gargoyles. When developed, he saw that they were doing finger spelling. He looked up the signs in the library, expecting they'd say something like "Fuck off." Yes, that's seven letters, but who says gargoyles can spell? Unfortunately, what they said was "Help us!"

Justin (whose flaw is Meddler): Shit. That's just what I need before midterms.

(7) When Justin was working on his article about the clubs on campus, Ken commented that doing the scutwork gave one a surprising amount of power, something Justin understands completely because it's how he operates.

Later on, Justin asked about the cataloging system for the books, and upon hearing that there wasn't one, volunteered to create one sometime in the Spring (being overcommitted for the Winter). Ken patiently explained that the books are there to be read, and if someone needs to keep one, that's fine, and that there were a lot of people who might need to read them, but wouldn't do so if they had to put their name down.