Swordspoint -- Richard, Alec, manhood, choices... lots of introspection

The first time I read Swordspoint, I lived on Lexington Avenue in a very tiny apartment in a very grand building that had once housed some foundation or other. It was at baldanders recommendation. I had just finished the first four Harry Potter books, and I was obsessed, obsessed, and I whined to Soren that nothing else seemed capable of holding my attention. He recommended Swordspoint and noted that he thought I was a lot like Alec.

He certainly wasn't wrong, especially then. I've never been one for self-injury in all of the most common senses of it (I was never a cutter, nor did I ever put my fist through a window or wall), and it's something I can actually say I no longer engage in, but I'd lash out at myself in weird ways to make other people off balance or miserable or because I was bored or stupid or just needed to clear my head a lot. And I was smart, like Alec, and had a difficult relationship both with family and possessions, and never seemed to be living amongst my own kind no matter what I did. Of course, dark hair and angular, bad temper. It was most likely the only book I could have read then.

On the reread, which I just finished, I was struck by how deeply I identified with Richard this time, his acts of necessity, the reluctant patience of his love, the discomfort he has with his adjacencies (academic and nobility) because eventhough he can keep up, he feels it's irrelevant in light of his lack of credentials, and of course, the way certain things need to be made clear. He accepts the poor consequences of his pride with a sort of dignity I should at least like to have about the character flaws I don't seem able to do much about. It surprised me.

One of the truly masterful things about Swordspoint is the nuances in Alec's and Richard's relationship that go on below all the ways in which it's unhealty (secrets, lack of communication, codependence, enabling, etc etc etc). Its power dynamic is all over the place in a way that a lot of writers (fannish and orig fic) could really really learn from. No one is anything all the time, though we may wish it. The ebb and flow of their intimacies, the way specificity is juxtaposed with extreme vaguesness, the fact that whoever is taller doesn't decide the power dynamic (please, all fanfic writer's take heed -- the short guy is not always the bottom all the time, OMG, stop it!), etc etc etc.

Ah, I had wanted to write about this eloquently, but it's clearly not in me right now.

So just two more things of note then:

1. The compare and contrast on this book to Melusine is amazingly useful. I'll do more of that at themollyhouse, but here I wil just note -- We are given on and off glimmers of Alec's fear of physical intimacy and sex, but despite being "unmanly" it never seems false or gratuitous or annoying, despite the fact we also never get an explanation for it. Yet this issue is a big mess in Melusine. Is the reason it works with Alec simply because he's easier to like or because we learn more about him before this starts to show up (since it's hardly a plot point)? The difference is interesting.

2. As connected as I felt to Richard, as much as reading about Alec this time was with this strange removed fondness, every word about his bones, wrists in particular, and what they felt like in Richard's hands, had such a specificity to it -- my wrists aren't even five inches around and people think they are proof of all sorts of things (breeding, diseases I do and don't have, how I like to fuck, grace, etc.), so really very few people get to touch them at all. With most who aren't allowed, I take it as an insult that I know that in most cases isn't intended (when it is, people always make it clear, so when sloppy people in dance class catch me by the wrist instead of the hand, I grit my teeth and slide things into a better form as best I can). The description of the way Alec's bones there can't help by grind together everytime he's being horrid and Richard has to grab him too tightly made me smile though, the idea of gestures shared across worlds real and not.

It's a strange book, which actually, also makes me think of the last ten mintues I caught tonight of Friday Night Lights, which lawnrrd has repeatedly said is the best thng he's ever seen about American manhood.

One of the best, and most calculated, things about my life is that when it comes to my nature (as opposed to my ambitions), I have no expectations at which I can really fail -- when I fail to be a man about something, much as I hate it, well, I am a woman, afterall. And when I fail at that -- being pretty and smelling nice and all grace, well, I was raised with very specific instructions on being a lady, but I also knew from the beginning I wasn't one of those either -- the expectations were low.

Through quite the series of accidents and will I have such terrible and delightful freedom, and I really have to stop being up other people's asses because they don't. Because I can say everything is a choice all day long, but we are not always so capable of choosing. I was certainly late to the party myself. Some of us do come into it later than others, sometimes the choices of our history and of the parts of our history and selves that were never in our hands are so massive, we just come to things with different options, not smaller but just with unlikelier tools. I'm so willfull -- I want everyone to be -- that I am at times ungenerous with people in ways that aren't really fair, even if it comes from a truly gracious notion that anyone can do anything. I'm fiercely judgemental, and I probably do not fauly myself for it enough, but with the people I care about it almost always comes out of the fact that I think they could not only be more ferocious, but utterly deserve all the great fruits of that ferocity.

Aie. Richard and Alec. *sigh*. I've one of the sequels here too, thanks to hofnarr, but I think I will take a break before it, or I'll be so down the well with these boys, I'll be a bit lost to anything else.

Good heavens, it took me 40 minutes to write this post.

Ghosts (repost), Snape/OFC, 36/48

Ghosts (repost), Snape/OFC, 36/48
Rating: G – hard-R; this chapter PG-13
Author’s Notes:

If you don’t know what this is, please read this.

Despite a recent tune-up, this was written in 2001 and is not compliant with the current state of the HP universe.

Your feedback and commentary are always welcome, even for a time capsule such as this.

You can find all chapters here.

If you’re looking for slash, het, poly, Book-6 compliant Slytherin backstory please visit the recently updated Fascilis Descensus Averno a WIP written with kalichan. It features Severus Snape, Lucius & Narcissa Malfoy, Bellatrix & Rodolphus Lestrange and Regulus Black and mostly takes place in 1979 – 1981 but has forays both significantly forward and back in time.
Disclaimer: It’s JKR’s world, I just mess about with it.

( ˝Come downstairs, old friend, it's much more interesting than this,˝ Lucius said, making an expansive gesture to the room. )

fuckfuckfuckfuck

This is across the street from where my parents live.
http://community.livejournal.com/newyorkers/2091206.html

I can't get through to my father, who is older, can't get around very well and is probably at home. My mother may be at work -- should I call her and tell her? Oh my god.

update

FURTHER UPDATE: multiple news outlets are confirming it was a small, fixed-wing aircraft (so think a small Cesna or something similar). Nothing of that sort has any business being in the area around there _at all_ based on my understanding of the airspace and post-9/11 rules and regs. My knowledge on this is spotty, but probably better than the newscasters of the moment. Someone _seriously_ fucked up. Also, they were flying VFR. There had to be mechanical problems for this to make the slightest bit of sense, but they shouldn't have been anywhere near there. One supposes the radio could have gone with the rest of it.

I spoke to my mother who had spoken to my father and they and the apartment are fine at the moment. They do not seem to be evacuating the surrounding buildings, but my mother is not sure they will let her through to get home, either, as there is falling debris (albeit, not the way she needs to pass).

For those of you playing along at home, I can clarify some of what the news is telling you:

- There is not a helicopter pad on the top of that building
- There is a heliport about 12 blocks away.
- The building is very close to the river, so neither mechanical failure nor pilot error makes a scenario like this terribly surprising, IF it's a helicopter. If it's nother form of small aircraft this makes almost no sense at all.
- Whatever it was did not significanly penetrate the building, but partially crashed to the street.
- It is really doubtful this was terrorism, although people in major cities should get ready for the roar of fighter jets in the sky according to CNN
- This is directly adjacent to a hospital, which is good for the wounded, but bad in terms of people who just generally need to get to that hospital.
- Because of the wealth of the area people are home during the day and the current casualty number (2) will probably go up.

a New York story in the way things only seem to happen here

According to the New York Times:
"Yankees Pitcher Cory Lidle Was Killed in the Plane Crash, High-Ranking City Official Says"

the wicked ways of stories

The romantic way to ask this question is, "What have you done because you read it in a book?"

the less romantic, more completist way to ask this question is -- what things have you done because of some random (pop)culture inspiration?

Offhand, I went to Australia, took up Regency Dance and learnt to ride horses. I have a fourth one (herbalism) that's arguably similarly attributable (although also predates anything you could possibly blame it on as a personal interest) and I may be acquiring a fifth soon.

So really, my fellow nerds, what've you done?

When I was little, my parents always worried that I'd jump out a window so I could fly like in stories. I think they still worry.