Not everyone who uses magick understands what they are doing. People drift onto the path of avatarhood all the time, only occasionally noticing bizarre synchronicity and confluence before the eddies of fate dislodge them back into their mundane world none the wiser. Louise was a child when it happened to her, so with a child’s tenuous, undeveloped grip on reality she can be easily forgiven for not having connected the dots.
Louise grew up on the child beauty pageant circuit. Her mother instilled a ruthless sense of competition in her from an early age on top of the glorification of attention and adoration as the be all and end all. Louise learned to equate the success of her performances with mother’s love and affection, molding her into an avatar of the star. With the single-minded guidance of her sole parental figure and the uncluttered lifestyle of a kid she made it far along the path. Not godwalker or a contender for godwalker, not even in the top 100 candidates, but close.
She felt it during the middle of a talent routine in Miami, FL on August 9th, 1996, when the then godwalker fell. She and hordes of others felt the bottom fall out of the world and saw the stage it rested upon. Brightening its darkened floorboards, a spotlight. It was her’s, it was meant for her, she knew it but it was so far away. There were so many people between her and the light. She fought and elbowed to press her way through the crowd, deliriously afraid that someone would take it from her. And as she reached the edge of the stage someone did, as though it were the most natural thing in the world one of them stepped calmly into the light and raised their arms to cheering and thunderous applause.
When Louise woke up in hospital she was heartbroken. She only vaguely heard the doctors and her irate mother explain that she had collapsed on stage. That she had struck her head but the scans indicated she would be fine, they just needed to keep her here a few days to be sure. It didn’t really register, she’d had a religious experience and the loss had left her devastated. When she walked out of the hospital four days later she abandoned her old life and went out into the world at sixteen years old. She never saw her mother again.
Louise lived an ordinary life for a while. Waitressing and getting her GED. She flirted with live performance since singing had been her talent, but her heart wasn’t in it. She slipped from the path of the star. She married a man named Michael who ran a chain of car washes, had two daughters and assumed a quiet family life in spite of her own upbringing. They were looking at buying the diner where she worked so she could run it when Michael was sideswiped and killed by a semi on the highway.
Louise did her best to shelter her children from the loss of their father while hiding her own hurt. Financially they were okay and they had the support of their friends and Michael’s parents but this second loss dredged up the first and for a time Louise was emotionally adrift. It’s unfortunate that a pageant flyer, depicting a girl under a spotlight, is what brought her back.
Louise still doesn’t fully understand what happened in 1996 and thinks she lost a once in a lifetime chance, but that doesn’t mean her children are out of the running for the big prize. Filled with a religious certainty that she is setting them up for the greatest possible reward she has transformed into a parody of her own mother. Billing pageantry as a way to build their self-confidence and start a new chapter in their lives the trio travel the country just the way she did, vying for the adoration of judges and accolades of the sub-culture. Glimmers of synchronicity dog her steps and she takes these reappearing coincidences as an indicator she is on the right track. An occasional voodoo doll twisting the ankle of the competition doesn’t hurt either.
STATS
Personality: Louise has become the archetypal stage mother, living through her kids, just like her own mother. The only difference is the self-assurance that her motives are spiritual. She accepts basic superstition as prosaic reality - casually working gutter magick as a matter of course - having never known a world in which it wasn’t the case.
Rage: People who deny how special her children are, and by extension herself.
Noble: Excellence as inspiration. Louise teaches her girls that what they do is important to making sure others reach for their dreams.
Fear: Dying alone (Isolation).
Obsession: Find the spotlight again.
Wound Threshold: 50.
Former Avatar 70% (Substitutes for Secrecy, Evaluates Unnatural, Use Gutter Magick.)
Stage Mother 50%* (Substitutes for Notice, Coerces Helplessness, Coerces Isolation.)
Shock Gauges
When Louise woke up in hospital she was heartbroken. She only vaguely heard the doctors and her irate mother explain that she had collapsed on stage. That she had struck her head but the scans indicated she would be fine, they just needed to keep her here a few days to be sure. It didn’t really register, she’d had a religious experience and the loss had left her devastated. When she walked out of the hospital four days later she abandoned her old life and went out into the world at sixteen years old. She never saw her mother again.
Louise lived an ordinary life for a while. Waitressing and getting her GED. She flirted with live performance since singing had been her talent, but her heart wasn’t in it. She slipped from the path of the star. She married a man named Michael who ran a chain of car washes, had two daughters and assumed a quiet family life in spite of her own upbringing. They were looking at buying the diner where she worked so she could run it when Michael was sideswiped and killed by a semi on the highway.
Louise did her best to shelter her children from the loss of their father while hiding her own hurt. Financially they were okay and they had the support of their friends and Michael’s parents but this second loss dredged up the first and for a time Louise was emotionally adrift. It’s unfortunate that a pageant flyer, depicting a girl under a spotlight, is what brought her back.
Louise still doesn’t fully understand what happened in 1996 and thinks she lost a once in a lifetime chance, but that doesn’t mean her children are out of the running for the big prize. Filled with a religious certainty that she is setting them up for the greatest possible reward she has transformed into a parody of her own mother. Billing pageantry as a way to build their self-confidence and start a new chapter in their lives the trio travel the country just the way she did, vying for the adoration of judges and accolades of the sub-culture. Glimmers of synchronicity dog her steps and she takes these reappearing coincidences as an indicator she is on the right track. An occasional voodoo doll twisting the ankle of the competition doesn’t hurt either.
The spotlight was hers by right and stolen by vicissitude. If she can’t have it she’s going to make damn certain her girls get it for her.
STATS
Personality: Louise has become the archetypal stage mother, living through her kids, just like her own mother. The only difference is the self-assurance that her motives are spiritual. She accepts basic superstition as prosaic reality - casually working gutter magick as a matter of course - having never known a world in which it wasn’t the case.
Rage: People who deny how special her children are, and by extension herself.
Noble: Excellence as inspiration. Louise teaches her girls that what they do is important to making sure others reach for their dreams.
Fear: Dying alone (Isolation).
Obsession: Find the spotlight again.
Wound Threshold: 50.
Former Avatar 70% (Substitutes for Secrecy, Evaluates Unnatural, Use Gutter Magick.)
Stage Mother 50%* (Substitutes for Notice, Coerces Helplessness, Coerces Isolation.)
Shock Gauges
Notches
|
Violence
|
Unnatural
|
Helplessness
|
Isolation
|
Self
|
Hardened
|
2
|
4
|
3
|
3
|
4
|
Failed
|
0
|
3
|
1
|
2
|
1
|
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