Actual Play Report: 'Storm Cellar' (Part 2)
(Continued from part one, which reveals that I played in a LARP called 'Storm Cellar' at Go Play Northwest, as the character Emily Rayne.)
Part Two: Wherein Our Hero Reveals More Details Of The Happenings From Part One, Of An Even More Personal Nature
Spoilers. Big ones. I can’t write about this without ‘em; sorry.
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There’s one other big aspect of Emily’s backstory that made it very personal to me: unbeknownst to him, Emily’s son Theo is adopted. And knownst to her, my own daughter is also adopted. And for both, birth mom has… issues.
In “Storm Cellar”, Theo’s mom is Emily’s half-sister Mira. Bitter after inheriting our dad’s ‘meager savings’, while I got the farm itself, she cut herself out of my life, got a job at the bank, and started working her way up in the world. Then she got pregnant, and had no idea what to do with a child until she thought of me. Showing up on my doorstep with a newborn one night, she shoved him in my arms and paced the room, until finally, with a “I’m sure father would have wanted it this way anyway,” she left. From there, I never saw her much, but eventually, through shrewd (and, as I found out after the game was done, underhanded) business deals, she became a very powerful and rich figure in the town. But I could tell from a distance that all of her actions were entirely selfish, and mourned her from the sidelines.
My daughter’s birth mother doesn’t have those kinds of problems, but she definitely has problems. She loved my daughter in her own way, but the decisions she made will affect her for the rest of her life. Ever since she’s lived with us, the two of them have never seen each other. Eight years on, the situation is no longer as unsafe as it was in the beginning, but we know through an older sibling that the mom is not doing well.
So, each lost in their own way, my heart ached as Emily for Mira as my own heart aches for my own child’s birth mom. And similarly, my heart ached for Theo having to deal with a broken Mira, in much the same way my heart aches for my own daughter having to deal with her broken past.
There’s an interesting and sad fact about adoption that didn’t really crystallize for me until I heard it from a fellow adoptive parent: “There is no successful adoption apart from someone else’s failure or loss.” Adoption is a step towards healing, but there’s only one reason something needs to be healed. And with wounds like these, there is rarely a quick fix available.
Mira had her own ridiculous ideas about how to reconnect with her son, that were all thinly-veiled attempts to separate her son from me. Theo saw right through them and made a beautiful speech about how he wasn’t some sort of piece of land, to be traded and bartered: he was her son, and if she wanted to be in his life, great, but they needed to treat each other as people. As a parent, I will tell you right now that moments like that in your child’s life are what you live for: when you realize they’re growing up, and you can step back and just be proud of them for a little bit, before going back to worrying again. For Emily to have that with Theo was a highlight of the evening for me.
Throughout the evening, Theo and I made various overtures to Mira, all of which were summarily rejected. And it saddened me every time. Mira was set up to be the principal antagonist of the night, and indeed went so far as to get the bank manager to foreclose on my farm so that she could swoop in and buy the water rights it sat on (a ploy that, as discussed in part one, ultimately failed). But I (and Emily, by proxy) was literally never angry at her, nor even scared of her very real power over me and the farm. I was just sad and disappointed.
I should probably mention that the woman playing Mira had a much harder role than I did, but did an absolutely bang-up job of it. At our post-game decompression session, everyone agreed about how impressive and imposing Mira was. And she told Theo and I how much she had wanted to take us up on our various offers, but couldn’t, because that’s not who Mira was.
At the end of the night, the was storm was over and the GM opened the door. Mira, still standing proud despite her plans failing, strode out. Theo ran to the door, and called after her. “You’ll always be family,” she said. Somewhere out there is another woman whose beautiful voice my daughter inherited. I’ve seen her in person twice, and have never spoken to her. But she’ll always be family.
(Continues in part three.)
Part Two: Wherein Our Hero Reveals More Details Of The Happenings From Part One, Of An Even More Personal Nature
Spoilers. Big ones. I can’t write about this without ‘em; sorry.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
There’s one other big aspect of Emily’s backstory that made it very personal to me: unbeknownst to him, Emily’s son Theo is adopted. And knownst to her, my own daughter is also adopted. And for both, birth mom has… issues.
In “Storm Cellar”, Theo’s mom is Emily’s half-sister Mira. Bitter after inheriting our dad’s ‘meager savings’, while I got the farm itself, she cut herself out of my life, got a job at the bank, and started working her way up in the world. Then she got pregnant, and had no idea what to do with a child until she thought of me. Showing up on my doorstep with a newborn one night, she shoved him in my arms and paced the room, until finally, with a “I’m sure father would have wanted it this way anyway,” she left. From there, I never saw her much, but eventually, through shrewd (and, as I found out after the game was done, underhanded) business deals, she became a very powerful and rich figure in the town. But I could tell from a distance that all of her actions were entirely selfish, and mourned her from the sidelines.
My daughter’s birth mother doesn’t have those kinds of problems, but she definitely has problems. She loved my daughter in her own way, but the decisions she made will affect her for the rest of her life. Ever since she’s lived with us, the two of them have never seen each other. Eight years on, the situation is no longer as unsafe as it was in the beginning, but we know through an older sibling that the mom is not doing well.
So, each lost in their own way, my heart ached as Emily for Mira as my own heart aches for my own child’s birth mom. And similarly, my heart ached for Theo having to deal with a broken Mira, in much the same way my heart aches for my own daughter having to deal with her broken past.
There’s an interesting and sad fact about adoption that didn’t really crystallize for me until I heard it from a fellow adoptive parent: “There is no successful adoption apart from someone else’s failure or loss.” Adoption is a step towards healing, but there’s only one reason something needs to be healed. And with wounds like these, there is rarely a quick fix available.
Mira had her own ridiculous ideas about how to reconnect with her son, that were all thinly-veiled attempts to separate her son from me. Theo saw right through them and made a beautiful speech about how he wasn’t some sort of piece of land, to be traded and bartered: he was her son, and if she wanted to be in his life, great, but they needed to treat each other as people. As a parent, I will tell you right now that moments like that in your child’s life are what you live for: when you realize they’re growing up, and you can step back and just be proud of them for a little bit, before going back to worrying again. For Emily to have that with Theo was a highlight of the evening for me.
Throughout the evening, Theo and I made various overtures to Mira, all of which were summarily rejected. And it saddened me every time. Mira was set up to be the principal antagonist of the night, and indeed went so far as to get the bank manager to foreclose on my farm so that she could swoop in and buy the water rights it sat on (a ploy that, as discussed in part one, ultimately failed). But I (and Emily, by proxy) was literally never angry at her, nor even scared of her very real power over me and the farm. I was just sad and disappointed.
I should probably mention that the woman playing Mira had a much harder role than I did, but did an absolutely bang-up job of it. At our post-game decompression session, everyone agreed about how impressive and imposing Mira was. And she told Theo and I how much she had wanted to take us up on our various offers, but couldn’t, because that’s not who Mira was.
At the end of the night, the was storm was over and the GM opened the door. Mira, still standing proud despite her plans failing, strode out. Theo ran to the door, and called after her. “You’ll always be family,” she said. Somewhere out there is another woman whose beautiful voice my daughter inherited. I’ve seen her in person twice, and have never spoken to her. But she’ll always be family.
(Continues in part three.)