And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow - Session 22 - What a horrible semester to have a breakup
I like to think of the rhytmn of Hearts Aglow as a match of poker. We go around the table and each player decides if they're going to do the default action of study - fold - or try to hang out with someone and risk getting stressed - call. That stability is very comfortable, as sometimes we just accept nothing very interesting will happen and move on.
I was a bit scattered for this session, but I both didn't tell my players and didn't apologise for it either. Not out of any particular stoicity, I just find that when I say out loud I am like that before a session, I internalise it and make it bigger than it is. Instead, I decide to forget about it and trust my skill, my players, and the guardrails I put in place (i.e. the procedure) to prevent my feeling off from affecting the game. And it worked! As I expected and hoped, as soon as the game started I shifted gears into the Hearts Aglow mindset and started seeing the threads to tug.
That's ultimately what most affects me when running stuff like this: am I seeing the opportunities clearly? Am I seizing them up or are they passing by? This makes or break a session, though never fully as there will always be something fun going on with such a skilled group.
Anyway, here's what went down.
August (Late Winter) - Week 1
Giovanna and Cora studied.
Fiorello went out for coffee with his buddy Carnelias and... had to come to the realisation that perhaps he and Carnelias don't have much in common anymore. They started hanging out at 14 and now that they're 16, Fiorello is starting to notice Carnelias is kind of a mean git, who seems uninterested and unaccommodating.
August - Week 2
This is the weekend for the Assumption of Mary, so there is a parade in town (they're taking the altar from the cathedral to the abbey and back again).
Giovanna and Fiorello attend it along with Hokuao - an underclasswoman who Fiorello saved from drowning early in the year - and Francesca, and all have a good time. They learn a bit more about Hokuao too.
Cora, meanwhile, has coffee with her girlfriend and chats about winter break. Things don't go badly, but Belina is having misgivings about their relationship and if she really wants to commit to flaunting it like that.
Cora: "I don't know if I can act 'respectable' around you anymore."
Belina: "Neither do I. And that's what makes it so scary."
August - Week 3
Fiorello is studying - i.e. taking flying lessons.
Giovanna and Claudia go out for an ice cream date and it goes well, they're batting eyelashes and broing out - Claudia clearly does not enjoy being seen in public at all, but particularly not with the knowledge she's a deviant, but that hasn't become an issue here.
Cora goes out in search of the Mourning Dove and learns about his human side.
Weird Writer (Giovanna): He's the equivalent of the cool stoner as a shoujo bishounen
Eterna (Cora): If cora wasnt lesbian she'd so fall for him after this one lol
Also Eterna:
well. sexuality is complex and she might be feeling something but. Not enough to pursue anything lol
August - Week 4
Everyone bears down and studies. Fiorello gets a random event: his poetry has been published anonymously, so that's very heartening for him.
September (Early Spring) - Week 1
The balmy tropical dry season starts to break and the cicadas begin to wake up.
Fiorello gets another random event: he heard some people talking shit on his poem, "they'll publish anything on the paper these days!" and that stressed him out. He then decided to go out and talk with the Romantic clique, and met two people: Duke Hyano Rilledil, a first year, and Dofrin bon Merbik, a fourth year. They only talked about poetry so Fiorello's relationship was unaffected with any of them.
There was another festival this week, the Nativity of Mary, and Cora and Giovanna attended separately. Cora with Francesca and Aristarcus, Giovanna with Hokuao, making new friends!
September - Week 2
Everyone studied.
September - Week 3
Cora studied.
Eterna:
cora: if I'm good enough at learning the history of magic maybe Emerald will teach me how transport myself and Bellina to some hidden realm were us being together is ok. this is obviously possible and reasonable
Giovanna gets a terrible random event, we decide this means she tried to be close to Claudia in public and got the cold shoulder over the week. Thus, she goes out with Fiorello to relax in the mountain.
September - Week 4 (Midterms!)
Cora and Fiorello skirt by their midterms, Giovanna fails and gets a boatload of stress. We decide this means the strained relationship with Claudia ended up with her falling from her horse during the 'exam' (she's in the polo team, her exams are polo games) and so she spent the entire weekend alone in the hospital.
That weekend is the Moon Festival, aka Michaelmas. Cora spends it drinking with the Mourning Dove and it goes pretty well although she learns he can be a bit of a scumbag at times.
Eterna: Cora: you ever wonder what life is like for the people on the moon. Spirits. I dont know
Mourning Dove, smoking hashihs out of a waterpipe: woah. Must be crazy
Cellar (Fiorello): he is, for better or worse, the main character
WW: Leftist feminist guy
Fiorello spends it with his boys, Briglici and Carno Carsi, and ends up alienating Briglici a bit. This is where he starts to realise he might have grown apart from the boys.
Havoc: "Fancying yourself a poet huh fiorello?" Says Carno, chudly
October (High Spring) - Week 1
Spring is kicking into high gear, and so Fiorello goes out with Alessa - Mann's character which, since he's unable to play for a few months, is understood to be around but inactive - to talk about beetles and trample around the mountain like they did when they were younger.
Cora and Giovanna both study. Giovanna gets a random event which she decides to be that, as she leaves the hospital, the sun catches the tiled rooves of Gabadona in a certain way, making them redden up like strawberries in summertime, and for a moment life doesn't seem so bad.
October - Week 2
Giovanna goes out with Claudia. She hands her a letter she wrote in the hospital, basically taking the entire blame for everything that happened and internalising it in a horrible way, letting herself be trampled. Claudia does not react to it at all and continues the date as normal. With this, Claudia and Giovanna know that their honeymoon phase is over, and Giovanna's player believes it's a matter of time until the relationship ends entirely.
Everyone has their heart broken by this so we smash cut to Cora with her shiny new mobile suit in the track & field, testing it out with her friends - Fiorello, Corina, Francesca, and Belina - presumably while Fooling Mode plays in the background. Fiorello and Francesca, as usual, pair up and have fun watching Cora and Corina roughhouse for who gets to wear the suit, even if a few of Fiorello's remarks land wrong on Corina.
Unfortunately, this seems to alienate Belina, who feels left out, distant, probably has some inadequacy boiling over, and simply leaves at one point when no one is watching.
Cellar: this single weekend is perhaps the most Hearts Aglow weekend yet
October - Week 3
Cora is studying, Fiorello is relaxing.
Giovanna, knowing that Belina is growing distant from the others, asks to go out with her and they both go running. Belina sprints as fast as she can, as she has a habit of working through her emotions with physical exercise, and afterwards they share a water bottle while just chilling and forgetting about both of their troubles.
Sunbeam Emerald, the WITCH, lets Cora know she might have something for her to do over her summer vacation.
Eterna:
Cora: ...I kinda want to be her when I grow up?? no one expects HER to be proper
WW: Sunbeam has huge drag energy tbh
Afterword
And with that we ended the session. The last week of October is always loaded with events, as it's Halloween, Coronation Day, and Cora's birthday, so we'll leave that for later. Relationships are growing cold, friendships are shifting and there are new NPCs being thrown in the mix. Summer is fast approaching and it smells like adventure. We'll see what comes next.
