sunday, 16 october, 2022 | 00:25
i think i've gotten so good at playing a background character in other people's stories that i forgot how to be the main character in my own.
i told you in bare bones details about the solo dnd campaign i'm trying to run through for myself. zerrakas, the tiefling fighter who's seen so much war that he chooses the road and the mercenary life instead of being at home with his once wife and two children. hexxus, the wood elf ranger raised by wolves in a nondescript forest, living in the shadows and on the edge of the world's periphery. aaliyah, the human cleric abandoned by her church the moment they caught wind of her necromancy. celine, the high elf bards who's weapons of choice are her honeyed or barbed words depending on the evening; who carries a lute and a pan flute and a well of magic that she only taps into when she has to make a retreat.
celine's my favourite. i think about her and think that that's who i want to be. a reserved person who doesn't wear their emotions on their sleeve; who's quick to anger but doesn't let it boil over but rather simmers until it's cool and controlled. someone with the capacity for violence fueled by a past of anguish but refuses to brandish it as the weapon it could be. a little slick and a little sly, someone who meditates on their options before making their choice. someone a little predictable yet hard to read in an endearing way. someone who knows what people want but, more importantly, what people need. someone beautiful and poised; flawed but not in a surface level way.
i crafted celine and poured all of myself into her, into her party — whatever there was to pour anyway. all that i am, all that i have: a storyteller; a musician; someone who dons a different name every few months because that is what's safer. no permanent residence in an identity, or bridging connections that eventually fizzle out. in the end, celine and i always end up alone. collect the fruits of our labour after a long night and go home to an empty feeling house, an indisputably empty bed.
i crafted celine in the hopes that i could give her a better story than my own. to help her shed the things i couldn't; to help her break through the walls i never will. i crafted her a flawed found family that could establish ties that would never break. i crafted her someone who could love and protect her unconditionally. i crafted her with anguish and trauma and flaws that she will never be able to throw away but could build around and alongside of.
i am not good at crafting a main character, however. no matter what i write or the encounters i build, celine and her party remain in the background. the charlatan you see at the gambling tables. the mercenary that sits alone in the corner. the scorned acolyte with no real past. the wanderer who resides in the woods where no one goes. i hoped to write out a life i would never have and not only failed but also damned them away from the foreground.
i think i've gotten so good at playing a background character in other people's stories that i forgot how to be anything else.
i don't think i can be anything else.
i think it is time to close my chapter in the woods. with you. find a different story to exist as flavour text in. if i can take anything from celine, i can take this shedding of an unfruitful past and of painful connections. to instead look forward and never glance back; to cease clinging to the things and people that were never mine to begin with.
i am but a bucket after all. to be filled with things then emptied out again. a bucket is to be damned to the background, no? no matter the story.
i love you. thank you for the best main character i've ever played background to.
