This is the interlude thread between Act I and Act II of Shawn's childhood within the Chronicles of Darkness Mortals: Innocents Game.

In this thread, Shawn must spend all experience points gained before advancing. Before spending the experience. You must answer the following questions on behalf of your character

Question #1:  What was Shawn's Shining Moment And Crushing Defeat?:

Shining Moment: What moment, during the previous stories, stood out as his greatest success?

Crushing Defeat: What moment, during the previous stories, stood out as his greatest flub-up that nearly killed or messed up everything?

Question #1

Shining Moment: Definitely saving Ralph (and Erik) from Cherrywinks. Outmanoeuvring a bunch of dangerous people and managing to get everyone out alive is probably the most straightforwardly heroic thing Shawn's ever done.

Crushing Defeat: Letting his Mom and Dad's fight get out of hand to the point where it got Bobby killed. Whether or not that's really how it worked, Shawn sees it that way, and it's not gonna help with his controlling tendencies. He's definitely going to try and bring Bobby back somehow. (Out of character, it's forgetting that Tough cancels wound penalties during that chase with Bradford!)

Question #2: What is Shawn’s primary motivation now that Ralph has been saved from both Cherrywinks and Mr. Clayton and now that Bradford is dead?

Question #2

Shawn has a bunch of different things he's worried about right now. There's fixing Eddy, getting Ralph back in the family, the Circus (he's not convinced they're entirely gone), his parents' fighting, his inability to lie without marking himself. Plus, he misses Bobby and wishes he could bring him back. Mr. Clayton may be the answer to at least some of these, so at least for now, his primary motivation is learning everything he can about Ventriloquism without ending up like Bradford. He knows it's dangerous, but he thinks it's less so than facing whatever happens next by himself.

Question #3: How does Shawn view the unfolding drama in his house? Which parent, if any, does he naturally gravitate to?  What does he like, if anything, about his home 🏠 life?

Question #3

Shawn's feelings about his parents are really complicated, probably to the point where he's not even sure how to describe it.  He still loves both of them - or at the very least he still craves their approval, which is basically the same to him - but they clearly both want something completely different out of him and he doesn't know how to make them both happy.

He hates it when they fight, because on some level he believes it's his fault. After all, he's kind of fuelling the flames; when he's with his Dad he's pretending that he's more into sports than acting, and when he's with his Mom he's pretending he likes acting more than sports, and from his perspective that's most of what they argue about. But at the same time, deep down he resents their fighting too. Shawn puts so much effort into keeping up appearances and pretending to enjoy things when he doesn't, and it seems unfair that Mom and Dad can just openly argue and don't feel obligated to put on a brave face like he does.

He doesn't really have a parent he overwhelmingly favours over the other. If he absolutely had to choose one or the other, he'd probably eventually settle on his Mom over his Dad. He doesn't really have an interest in sports or that other stuff Dad's trying to teach him, and despite trying not to think about it, he's worried that his Dad might've hit his Mom, and that means he might hit Shawn too.

As for his home life...he liked having Bobby and Ralph around, though there's obvious issues there. His birthday party was a lot of fun as well, though he didn't get to enjoy it as much as he might've wanted to because of the looming threat of Bradford. And of course, despite everything, he does like it when he makes his parents happy; every time they praise him for something he did, it makes him feel a bit better about himself. If only temporarily.

Question #4, Second to last question: What are Shawn’s views on the supernatural events that he has experienced? How does he make sense of the Circus and of the Wishes and the realities that all of these things have warped and changed? Who, if anyone, does Shawn feel like he could talk to about these events?

Question #4

Before all of this Circus stuff happened, Shawn liked reading fantasy books, and that very much informs his view of supernatural things. Magic exists, and it's something those with knowledge (or a magical item, or support from some higher entity) can harness, though obviously a lot of it comes with a price or can go dangerously wrong. The Circus and the Wishes and all that, they're dangerous and he's not sure how they work. But he also thinks they're something he can understand, at least with help. And maybe if he understands enough, he can figure out how to protect himself and those he cares about until the danger passes.

But it's also a little deeper than that. He feels powerless, like everything in his life is spinning out of hand. There are problems he can't just lie through or run away from, and learning how to exploit all this weird supernatural stuff is seeming like the only way he can get things back under control. After all, Mr. Clayton and Bradford stole Bobby and Ralph out of his family and no one else even remembered, and he has memories of himself literally dying. Anything could happen and he needs to be ready for it.

Of course, he doesn't really have anyone he can confide in about this, or at least anyone he can trust. He might've talked to Ralph before, but Ralph doesn't remember any of this anymore and probably wouldn't believe him now. All he has is Feddler and Mr. Clayton, and they're not exactly neutral parties. He's very isolated at the moment in this regard.

 Shawn must spend all current experience points possible according to the following-

Attribute: New dots x 5
Skill: New dots x 3
Skill Specialty: 3 points
Merit: New dots x 2
Morality: New dots x 3

     Please update your character sheet. When you have done so, answer the following final question:

Question #5: How does Shawn feel about the changes in his 'acting career' the ups and the downs?

Question #5

If it weren't for all the dangerous supernatural stuff in his life, Shawn might've enjoyed the downturn in his acting prospects after Mr. Sellick's disappearance. He like performing, because he likes being able to please an audience, he was just getting worn down by the schedule and the pressure, so maybe only doing movies every so often would've been nice. Of course, that would probably makes his Mom unhappy, which also worries him.

He was kinda hoping Kid Knight and other big movies would be the compromise, as in maybe doing bigger movies would mean being able to do them less often. But it didn't do well, and it still worries Shawn that maybe it was his fault. If he does get another big movie, he wants to do well so that he can prove that wasn't his performance that set it back.