Dissecting a Trope: Ancient Man, Young Woman

Contains spoilers for Sarah J Maas's "A Court of..." series, though I've only read the first 2 books and I really enjoyed them and you should read them too, and I'm going to try to remember to get them out of the library on the walk home from picking my little one up from nursery today and did you know there's a library app that lets you download audio books and I just had to correct a typo and have turned on a podcast to shut up my brain so I can write this whole thing properly rather than rabbit holing with a suspected ADHD brain. It's incredible how much background noise like TV/podcasts can help me focus. For me, documentaries are much better than lyricless music.

Let's start again.

This contains spoilers for Sarah J Maas's "A Court of.." series, and may contain spoilers for Twilight/50 Shades of Grey/Buffy the Vampire Slayer though nothing that isn't widely discussed already.

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I've been contemplating an apparent contradiction: I feel that I strongly dislike stories with a romance between a young, innocent woman and a powerful, ancient being, and yet my favourite romances in roleplay games are between Svetlana and the King, an older man, and especially Taji and the Undying Fury of Creation, which definitely falls into this trope.

Doesn't it? He's thousands of years old, incredibly strong and powerful; she's in her early twenties, a bit lost the way people in their early twenties are, dealing with a dramatic childhood.

And Svetlana. Ok, so Noleski isn't ancient, but he is powerful: he was Regent when they met, King when they married, and he's older than her - only a few years, but still older. That feels similar. 

I am deeply uncomfortable with Edward/Bella in Twilight. Full disclosure, I haven't read Twilight; I read Reasoning With Vampires instead, and that was a few years ago. However, he's an ancient, powerful vampire, she's a naive girl. I have read 50 Shades of Gray and (having grown out of alt universe fan fic) it leans heavily on that relationship. The power imbalance.

It's like in Buffy. I love Buffy; I grew up with the show and it gave me a female protagonist who was allowed to be angry, who was allowed to make mistakes and figure things out and find her own way. Oh, but but but! Then there's Angel. The way he followed her around. It was creepy to me. I saw that she was attracted to him back, per the story, but it made me uncomfortable and I didn't understand why. The relationship with Spike was more honestly broken.

Which moves me on to A Court of Thorns and Roses. This was described to me by a friend as a take on Beauty and the Beast, but as she talked I commented it sounded more like the Ballad of Tam Lin. She hadn't known this story, but the version I knew runs basically as: a young woman called Janet or similar is told by her father that she will rule all this land (always made me think of the scene in The Lion King even though the ballad is much older). This includes a woodland in which lives a mysterious man who demands sex from women as price of passage. She goes through the wood and tells the man she owns it so he can't demand anything, but they have an affair anyway. She returns to her family, and her uncle realises she's pregnant and helps her get back to Tam Lin who is a mortal taken by faeries and due to be sacrificed to hell. She saves him by lying in wait, pulling him from his horse and clinging to him as he is changed into various beasts and elements. The fairy queen isn't happy, but gives him up, and Janet finishes her labour and gives birth (Janet is nails).

I promised I wouldn't get distracted again; I've shared this because it's another version of this trope and there's a lot in it I like. Not the way the titular character will sexually abuse women, but the way the main character is a strong-willed woman who saves her love while pregnant. It's not especially well known so I thought it might need more explanation than, say, Twilight.

A Court of Thorns and Roses actually leans into the abuse aspect of this trope, but subtly. If you were a fan of Twilight, you might not even pick up on the ick in the way the High Fae Tamlin treats young mortal Feyre. The sequel makes it overt, unmissable even to the most blinded Christian Gray fan. She finds and falls in love with another of the High Fae, also ancient and powerful, but the relationship is more balanced: the first book ends with her becoming High Fae herself, so there is less power imbalance, and Rhys treats her respectfully and as an equal.

And this, this difference between Tamlin in Thorns and Roses and Rhysand in Mist and Fury, is the heart of why I love the trope as applied to my roleplay characters and hate it in Twilight. Because it's not about the age gap, it's not about the power, it's about how it's applied, about the relationship itself.

So let us return first to Svetlana and Noleski. He's the King; he has more political power. She helps bolster that power, but it is a love match. She chooses to be with him for herself, not for their power, and it's a free choice: he has never manipulated her. He never tries to control her, although their natures are different. He respects that she is restless and needs to travel, and she responds to that by talking to him when she is intending to go on an adventure (out of character, he's not going to stop her because the game is about the group's adventures, and he can be a source of adventures). 

And Taji and the Undying Fury of Creation. This one is much more akin to A Court of... - the High Fae have a soul mate (can't remember the precise term used), and this binds Fayre and Rhys (Tamlin tries to pretend he has this link with Feyre and it's part of how tries to control her). Taji is a Solar, Fury is her Lunar mate: this bond ties them. In game mechanic terms, their bond has Legendary status (I'm so excited about this, because it's evidence of player agency in our world! When we first met, I sent a message to another major NPC and the words I used made my GM doubletake, then pause the game to scribble loads of notes, and it's this, the strength of the bond was born in that moment). Anyway, this bond makes them want to be near each other. In standard game terms, Lunars have a compass-like sensation, direction and distance, that draws them to their Solar mates, while Solars usually have nothing. For Fury, this bond is inescapable. It's so strong, Taji feels it to, a sense of the distance between them. So they're linked, connected like that. And he's ancient and powerful, and she's young. But she's strong-willed, she knows her own mind, she has dreams and the grit and determination to achieve them. She's lacking knowledge and experience and makes plenty of mistakes, but isn't naive. He supports her; she has taken his protection and support for granted due to her youth, but this is something that changes as the story develops. And she loves him for the him of him, the thoughtfulness and gentleness he shows her. It's not the bond forcing the love (other bonded people are intensely close friends, for instance), but their bond does impact how they feel. And Taji has the potential to live long enough that this age gap will become minimal.

What's the difference? In the games, a huge part is the agency and control I have as the person playing the young woman. In fiction, when the relationship seems based on mutual respect and support, when the power is balanced in a healthy, shared way, that's when I really enjoy it.

(I can't think of any examples where the roles are reversed. Where an ancient, powerful woman and a naive young man end up in a long term relationship. A few flings, maybe, always from the male perspective.)

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Happy Hallowe'en

On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,
Must the youngest open the oldest hills
Through the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.
There fire shall fly from the raven boy,
And the silver eyes that see the wind,
And the light shall have the harp of gold.

By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,
On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;
Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,
Yet singing the golden harp shall guide
To break their sleep and bid them ride.

When light from the lost land shall return,
Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,
And where the midsummer tree grows tall
By Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.

Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,
ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod. 

 

 ~ Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising series

I love this poem so much. I don't know exactly why, but from the very first time I read that opening line, I was hooked. Every Hallowe'en, it rises unbidden and I must seek it out and read it again. I'm certain I've shared it here before, but have it again. And if you haven't read the series it's from, go! Go now, and find Over Sea, Under Stone and read it. I know it's meant for children and it's mostly adults who read my book, but go read it now with your child eyes. I hope it stirs something in you like it did me.

 

It's the third book in the series, The Green Witch, that captivates me the most. The dream-like sequence with Jane under water with the witch. It haunts me. 

 

I love liminal things, being at the edges. I love to stand on the sand with the sea washing my toes, or dipping them into the stream beneath the trees, or to stand in the depths of a woodland, at the boundary between civilisation and wildness, between reality and possibility.

 

I've always felt a very liminal person. Today is the day of the dead, the day the veil thins and we can almost caress our dead loved ones. Death, being dead, has always frightened me. One part of my brain accepts that after death comes nothingness, a lack of existence, and that terrifies me more than I can bear. But I have other parts of me too, and I have learnt to let them talk, to let them soothe the fear so I can still breathe, still think. Parts of me that aren't afraid of death, but fascinated by it. Parts of me that wish they could be a Ferryman.

 

To try and help me deal with my fear of my own mortality, my Dad explained to me that one of the roles of the Hindu Goddess I was named for, my middle name, Kali, is death, is a psychopomp. The word appealed to me: a spirit or other divine being who guides a soul from one life, one state of being, to the next (that I, a white western woman, am named with Celtic and Hindu influences, is something I sometimes feel I need to address for concerns of cultural appropriation. I will leave it, for fear of overexplaining, with that a dear friend of my mother is Hindu).

 

I'd like to be both a doula and a death doula, someone who spends time with a person entering the world, and leaving it. I think it's why the Witches are my favourite Discworld characters: I immediately understood that was a role of theirs.

 

Hallowe'en is a day for reflecting on death, and Death, and other worlds. It's a day for considering who we are, and who we want to be. Death in Tarot doesn't necessarily mean the end of life, rather it represents change, the end of a stage. It is paired with the hope of rebirth, in some form.

 

Covid has shifted the world, and the world is trying to realise itself again. It could go in many directions. Some of the most hopeful have already been closed off, but at my core I'm an optimist.

 

I've always felt in a liminal state, torn between possibilities. I feel as though I may be starting to peel through them to find the balance point, the place where I'm meant to be.

Dream come true!

Really short post because I'm too excited to focus. That short story I said I'd submitted? It got accepted!

I was anticipating rejection. I knew I liked the story, but I didn't know if it was good enough - imposter syndrome dogs my footsteps in most aspects of my life. I would have been happy with a rejection, though; proof I had taken a step out of my comfort zone, that I'd taken a risk towards achieving one of my deepest wishes. That shift in mindset alone was reward enough.

Cloaked Press accepted it. It will be published in December, in a collection called "Winter of Wonder: Fauna 2022". I will of course be sharing a link when I have one.

I have to keep reminding myself it's just a short story: I feel like I've won the lottery.

It feels so good, like the hard work starts here, and the hard work will be worth it.

I can be a writer.

Quick Update

Normally after RPGaDay, I'm a bit burnt out for a while but doing it as weekly rather than daily posts hasn't had the same effect this year (though maybe also because I'm still on maternity so wasn't trying to fit it in around a job). This year, my delay in further posts is because Ziggy has an uncanny ability to wake up as soon as I turn my laptop on - and at the moment it's very difficult to type with him around as he wants to eat the mouse and the power cable, or bang on the keys...

He's currently napping beautifully, so I'm sneaking on quickly!

Kitty is still going. She's become quite adept at getting around with 3 working legs, but can't figure out how to claw up the furniture any more (yay!). Our neighbours even saw her jump a fence the other day, though she insists to us she can't get over the stairgates. She's losing weight rapidly, no matter how much we feed her, but while she stays content we'll continue to look after her.

Ziggy adores her, but isn't very good with his love. She likes to sleep in basically a blanket fort on the sofa, and he'll lift the blanket up to flush her out, even pulling the blanket right off if she doesn't respond (and we don't intervene quickly enough). She'll sit down next to him, though, and then give us evil looks if we let him touch her. She doesn't mind him stroking if we hold his hand and control him, but he hasn't learnt the importance of gentleness yet. He's getting bigger and more mobile, so it is getting harder to protect her from him, and she seems to want to troll him anyway, walking right past him when the easier route takes her the other side of the room. I find that fascinating.

I'm in the middle of writing up a Mage post, but it's slow going because of Ziggy - I get a sentence, maybe a paragraph done at a time. I'm also using his sleep time for knitting, researching, and playing City of Heroes (or, more accurately, logging into CoH and moving my characters to new day job locations. If I'm very lucky, I might get to do a mission with one of them).

Researching is to do with the novel I think I might actually manage to write. I read Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth and she mentions that there are no (or few) books in which a midwife - or even a nurse - is the main character, and something in my brain went "challenge accepted". This being me, I'm looking at a fantasy setting. Most of the fantasy I've read is heavily influenced by medieval Europe, so I thought I'd start by learning more about medicine and midwifery there. My local library were intrigued by the challenge and tracked down a few books they thought might help, but couldn't find anything specific (the best match, a history of nursing, was held in a reference library in a different county so they couldn't fetch that). I've got a book on women in medieval society, a book on medieval society and the manor court, and one about science in history, that includes Ancient Greek and Egyptian medicine so that sounds useful.

I've started with a chapter about sex, marriage and motherhood in the medieval women book, and have been interested by some of the misconceptions they held about the female body and also about misconceptions the modern world has about the role of sex in marriage (we think, or at least I did, that sex was something a man considered his right to take from his wife, but in fact sex was a debt each owed the other: the man also was expected to provide sex to his wife when she wanted). A lot of it stems from Christian influence that won't be relevant to my story but is still interesting. I want to create a more egalitarian society, but there are concepts I'm reading about that I want to include. I had the bones of the story, and the shape of the beginning and the end, and this is giving me ideas to help flesh out the middle. I only have the books for another couple of weeks, though, and start my new job next week, so I'm hoping I'll be able to renew the loan a few times as I'm not going to be able to get through them otherwise!

#RPGaDay2018: Day 18 - What art inspires your game?

I'm going to take a broader definition of "art" than I think's intended, as I can't think of any specific painting, drawing, or sculpture that's been used for inspiration. Films and short stories, on the other hand!

In Deadlands, we've spent a lot of time in Shan Fan, a city of Chinese, rather than European, immigrants and their descendents. Which means lots of martial artists, both mundane and with the "chi" arcane edge. There's a neat hindrance in The Flood book called "the cup overfloweth" which characters with the chi edge can take, and it makes their powers really obvious, in the style of the sorcerors in Big Trouble in Little China, which I've never seen all the way through, but Husbit's made sure I've seen enough to know what he's referencing. 

In Aberrant, there was a fight scene between Adam and some bad guys (the first fight of the rampage that landed him in jail) that was intentionally choreographed after a fight scene in the first Kingsman film (only with super powers rather than guns).

In Exalted, we had a whole training sequences inspired by various Jackie Chan films (the one I remember most vividly involved giant pottery jars we had to fill and empty with tea cups, but I'm not sure which film it was and my google-fu is failing me).

I mentioned short stories above. Husbit and I own a lot of short story anthologies, which can be great for inspiring adventure. There's something for any genre; here's a few collections I think are worth looking at:

• Cyberpunk: Stories of Hardware, Software, Wetware, Evolution, and Revolution - which does what it says on the tin
• The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women - a collection of stories by women and non-binary individuals of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, so giving a huge range of voices and viewpoints (The Mammoth Book of... books are often good and cover pretty much all common RPG settings)
• Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M R James and The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers - both pre-date Lovecraft and I'd say should be compulsory reading for anyone wanting to run Cthulu-type games
• The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton has some really creepy ideas for a ghostly, horror or supernatural game
• There's a great collection of Ambrose Bierce's ghost and horror stories, that includes a few of his American Civil War stories which makes it great for Weird West settings like Deadlands (but the book is on a random shelf upstairs and I can't remember or successfully google the title)

EDIT  TO ADD:

As I was mentally prepping this post, there were also novels to mention! Jim Butcher's Dresden Files have influenced our GM as he prepared his setting for Mage; I've not read the books, but he has leant me the first so as soon as I manage to finish rereading Snow Crash I'll get onto them. I've heard good things for years.

But the book that's inspired me is Heir to Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier. One of the male characters in that is the son of a fey lord or king or prince, who has gone around impregnating human women in the hopes of having a son to inherit, but until this character has only had daughters. This fascinated me - this idea that only a male heir was worthy, and wondering what happened to all the daughters. And that's basically where Svetlana comes from.

London Bookshop Crawl 2018

Have you ever heard of a bookshop crawl before? I hadn't, before Rochelle asked if I wanted to join her on one. (You know Rochelle - my aerial friend and fellow bibliophile.) Like a pub crawl, but round bookshops. 

This was an organised event in London, running from Friday to Sunday. We could only make Sunday, so we met on the train early yesterday morning and spent an excited couple of hours planning our day and talking books.

View from the Train Station before I left

We picked our first route because it was the one with the most stops. It started in Soho, with Gosh Comics. They were offering 10% off on books to bookshop crawl participants, but we wanted to look at the comics. I was tempted by Moon Girl and the Devil Dinosaur and she with something from Wonder Woman but we both ended up with Buffy Season 8 Part 1 instead - fitting, seeing as I'm very keen to have her in my Buffy game when I finally run it...

Gosh Comics

From there, we walked round Chinatown to seek out the next stop, where I was hoping to pick up a book of Chinese folktales or mythology. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the shop! Still, with Chinese New Year coming up, it looked stunning and we weren't sorry for the walk, even if we'd have liked to have found the shop.

Red lanterns of Chinatown

Then past theatres to get to the next stop - including the one where 'The Cursed Child' is showing. The external set dressing was beautiful.

The cursed child!

And onto Foyles. Most of the shops were smaller, independent stores, and Foyles definitely isn't small! I loved it all the same. I wanted a reference book there, and spotted Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. It's a book Pterry says every author or aspiring author should have on their shelves, and is full of the sort of slightly random information I love. Rochelle also picked up some books on mythology and fantasy creatures, including one with beautiful illustrations. 

Inside Foyles, I think I found what I want on my gravestone

The last stop on this route was Forbidden Planet. I hoped they'd have some interested RPG or similar, but nothing caught either of our eyes and we walked away with their goody bag and nothing else. Still, it was exciting to get free stuff just for being on the bookshop crawl.

Forbidden Planet

The second route we wanted to take we'd chosen based on Twitter reports, so we headed to Charing Cross. I'd mentioned the crawl to Ronelle, a colleague who lives in London, and she'd mentioned her favourite bookshop was on Charing Cross Road and there were loads... The one officially part of the crawl was Any Amount of Books, and was the one we liked best of the ones we nosed in. It also turns out to be Ronelle's favourite shop! It was crowded for such a small shop, so we didn't get anything there, but I think I'll be back another day.

Any Amount of Books

The next stop was Persephone Books, which was the one Twitter had encouraged us towards. We were impressed with how pretty it was outside. Inside, all the books were bound in beautiful pale grey. They publish out of print books, primarily by female authors of the 20th Century. The inside of the covers has beautiful print from the year the book was originally published; they do bookmarks with the print on one side and the book blurb on the back, which crawl participants could pick up as many as they wanted for free, so I grabbed a couple for books I liked the look of. We both picked up a book of short stories (which I love as a way of finding new authors), and they offered a discount if you bought 3 books so I also picked up a short horror story, The Victorian Chaise-Longue, that looked suitably creepy. 

Persephone Books

Next stop was the London Review Bookshop, though by the time we got there we were both starting to wear out (or at least, I definitely was and if Rochelle wasn't she was kind enough to pretend to be). They have a cake shop attached that has a great reputation, but unfortunately it wasn't open on Sundays.

London Review Bookshop

There was also meant to be a stop at Oxfam Books, which we passed as we headed to the tube station. We were too tired by now, so instead made our way back to Waterloo, were we enjoyed a cup of coffee and a spot of people-watching until our train came in.

Then home. I messaged Husbit, suggesting he might like to meet me at the station (thinking he could carry my books home). We flicked through Brewer's Dictionary, trying to find the most interesting or amusing facts. As we got closer to Rochelle's stop, I messaged again to point out the car might also like to meet me... I was very grateful he agreed, because I'm not entirely sure I could have walked the 15min it would take to get me home!

All in all, a wonderful day with a lovely person. Now I'm just looking forward to working through my loot!

#RPGaDAY2017: Day 19 - Which RPG features the best writing

I'm not sure. I've not read that many rule books, and when I do, I'm usually either browsing for ideas or I'm looking up something specific, which means I'm not focusing on the quality of the writing - unless it's so poor as to be a problem. And that old excuse I keep using this month: most of my books are packed away so I can't even nose through for comparison now.

I haven't read that many tie-in novels either, one for ShadowRun so many years ago all I remember is one of the secondary characters had cheap cyberware boosting his speed and it made him twitch and stutter, and then most of the Ravenloft books - some of which are terrible, to be fair. Most either have good writing but weak concepts, or interesting concepts and weak writing - but the Strahd novels by P N Elrod are very good, in concept, plot and writing. I'd like to read more by her!

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RPGaDAY was started by Dave Chapman and is currently curated by RPG Brigade. To join in yourself, follow the questions in the graphic and blog, vlog, tweet, or otherwise share your responses with the hashtag RPGaDAY2017.

Character A-Z: A is for Alanna

Alanna of Trebond, from The Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce

This was a series I read in my early teens and adored, and worry about rereading because I don't think it'll live up to my memories. Because I loved Alanna and I suspect the books aren't as well written as I'd prefer, and when I got the above image from Goodreads I discovered I'd forgotten a lot of the story and she didn't marry the person I thought...

So backing up a bit! Alanna is a red-headed, purple-eyed teenager who's being sent off to the convent to learn to be a young lady... Meanwhile her twin brother Thom is meant to be sent off to train to be a knight. The thing is, she wants to be a knight and is much better at riding, running and fighting than he is. He wants to be a sorceror, which conveniently enough means going to the convent. They look very alike, so convince the master-at-arms travelling with them to help them switch places and forge letters from their father. And shenanigans and danger ensues.

The story focuses on Alanna in a setting where it makes sense that she's basically the only girl: she has to pretend to be a boy ('Alan') because women aren't allowed to be knights. (That's why I don't mind that Thom wants to be a sorceror rather than a lady: sorcerors being trained in the same place always felt a bit lazy, but him being a lady would change that focus.) It was satisfying to read a story where there was a real reason why she was the only girl.

The storyline isn't great, but she's fierce and determined and has the courage to do what she wants, something I envied.

Character A-Z

I really enjoyed writing the 'Musical A-Z' I did a while ago: I enjoyed having some structure, and loved finding and rediscovering (sometimes slightly embarassing) songs to share. They were also low-energy posts, something I could work on when my mental energy reserves were lowered - and having that alphabet format helped by taking some of the effort away from thinking about what I was going to write. I didn't realise how much benefit the alphabet format helped until I tried using 'inspirational people' as a topic for low-energy posts, but it really didn't work.

There's two characters in particular who inspire me to the point I keep mentally drafting posts to explain my relationship with them: Maddy Magellan, Jonathon Creek's sidekick in the first 3 series, and Magrat Garlick, witch of Lancre in the Discworld. I was thinking about doing an A-Z of fictional characters I love and realised they're both M's (figuring I'll count the initial of the name the character is most often known by), so now I have a dilemma: I was going to have a post dedicated to a single character for each letter, and have the pool of characters to be drawn from TV, film, books, games and everywhere else fictional characters gather. Do I stick to that, or do I do a separate A-Z for each genre (thinking screen, paper and misc, allowing up to 3 characters for each letter), or do I do multiple posts for letters where I have multiple options? I'm leaning to that last, but then do I roll through the alphabet and start again, or do I stay with a letter til I've covered everyone? The first option would make it easier to cover someone I've missed, but the second means I don't have to decide between Maddy and Magrat the first time through... It also helps hide the fact there are some letters I can think of far more characters for than others. 

I'm not sure. Everytime I decide to do it one way, I change my mind. What do you guys think?

I'm looking forward to having a structured topic again, which will hopefully get me back in the habit of writing more. I don't want to go back to a boring job, which was how I was so much more prolific when I first started!

#RPGaDAY2016 - Day Fifteen: Your best source of inspiration for RPG's?

This feels an awful lot like Day 26 last year, which I struggled to answer and still feel a bit at sea over. So here's the story of a particular bit of inspiration for a particular part of a roleplay game - specifically, Svetlana's rather ambiguous father.

My elder sister recalled reading and rereading Maurice Sendak's Outside Over There to me over and over and over again when I was that age of child where you want that. Something about the story held me utterly gripped - she was terrified, but hid it well, seeing herself in the role of Ida, I guess, whilst I knew that if anything happened my big sister would save me, just like Ida saves her sister.

I saw the end of Labyrinth when I was young and the film seared itself in my mind such that maybe 15 years later time stopped when I found the DVD on my housemate's shelf and knew I'd finally found the film.

A huge Pratchett fan, I put off reading Wee Free Men because Husbit said it was too clearly aimed at children - but I loved it. It carried that same theme. I recently gave a copy to a 9 year old friend, and am terrified she won't love it.

I have an idea for a novella on these lines too.

I read Juliet Maurillier's Heir to Sevenwaters because it has that same story, of a child taken by the fairies. However (and in an attempt to avoid spoilers), what really caught me was a secondary storyline, revolving around the male love interest. It turns out, his father is a powerful fairy who went around impregnating women in the hopes of getting a male heir. You meet a much older woman who transpires to be his half-sister...

And that fascinated me. I wondered what it would be like to be the abandoned daughters - the novel implied there were many. And then fey blood is one of the sorceror types in Pathfinder, so I gave it to Svetlana and invented this whole backstory where her father was a powerful sorceror in an ancient tribe of elves who intermingled with the fey, he more than the rest, eventually reaching a point where he's maybe more fey than elf. And on some whim, he decides he wants a son, so finds a wife, and bores of her before she's produced more than daughters. On to the next one, and the next, until he stopped bothering marrying them and merely seduced the women - his power when Svetlana was conceived such that he didn't need to physically be there, but came to Natasha in a series of dreams.

I picture him as very ancient but still youthful. Mysterious, capricious - and still seeking a son. I don't know if Svetlana is the most powerful of his offspring, but all have some magical talent. I left the rest to the GM. He says he has ideas... 

 

Bendiness and Books

I got my Joint Hypermobility Syndrome diagnosis. It was very anticlimatic: I spent all of last Sunday worrying, then walked in, explained why I was there, demonstrated one wrist's motion in one direction and he said "yep, that's joint hypermobility", then kept repeating it couldn't be cured or treated, merely managed, as I showed off some of my other party tricks for my own satisfaction. He wasn't interested in my other symptoms (so I'm a little worried he hasn't marked the 'syndrome' part on my records, and the extra reading I've done makes me think I might actually need a diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome - Hypermobility Type), but did say whilst he's seen hypermobility before, never in so many joints and never to such a degree as my shoulders. I've got to book in with a physiotherapist and a sports masseuse, but both involve talking to a stranger on the phone, and I have enough trouble talking to my family so I've been putting it off. Also, if you have JHS/EDS, I have a friend with EDS who talks about it on her belly dance blog, Scarlet Lotus Dance, which you might like to check out.

The symptom I find most problematic is not actually the pain, but rather the fatigue. I need to learn to say when I can't do things because of the tired, because I suspect if I find a way to cut down I'll have more energy to commit to the things I keep. The problem is, I've already cut down as far as I'm prepared, and everything I have left I love, and Husbit already takes the greater share of housework and lets me sleep in at weekends when I need to, so it isn't going to be easy to do. I think the biggest thing is going to be insisting on earlier finishes for roleplay sessions, which sucks especially when we get really into it, but I know if we play much past 10:30 I'm starting to suffer, and if it gets beyond 11pm I'm barely there anyway.

Anyway, I'm tagging this and future posts about the condition with 'super bendy freak' so feel free to filter that out if you're not interested or find photos of hypermobility (aka double-jointedness) creepy, because I like showing off what I can do! (I don't know how to filter out, but I see people talking about it so I assume it's a thing you can do).

The main thing I actually wanted to talk about was the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch which was highly recommended by a friend with similar taste in reading material. I found the first in a charity shop a few weeks ago and loved it and talked my brother into buying me the second for my birthday (siblings are great!).

I loved the attention to detail - I was surprised when I looked the author up and discovered he wasn't a former cop, there are just so many little things dropped in that feel true. Husbit and I suspect he did a Castle to research sufficiently thoroughly, but there's nothing in the acknowledgements to prove that so maybe his imagination is just that strong.

 

The attention to detail extends beyond the police aspect of the novel: London is described with such depth and love. I don't know London well - I hate big cities! - but I had a moment in the second book when a park was described and I recognised it immediately as one I'd walked through every day when I was up in London for a training course last year.

 

The narrator has the clearest voice, of course, but all the characters come across as individuals in a very comfortable way. The narration is never patronising, managing to show you what's happening without feeling stilted. I'm reading for the sheer pleasure, but need to read again and dissect how this is done because it's not something I'm good at yet.

 

There were times when I was almost shouting at Peter Grant, the main character, for not making connection sooner, but actually it's in keeping with his character and something one of the other characters, Lesley May, pulls him up on it too so it's not frustrating the way I find it in other books - it's not because the author assumes the same sloppiness on the part of the reader, as often feels the case, but because this character really doesn't make the connections.

 

The river gods are wonderful.

 

I think my only criticism is the way women are described (gorgeous and fuckable, or in some way monstrous/unwomanly and unfuckable), the way 'people'='men' and a transphobic scene in the second book (a woman makes it clear she's only male by birth, but is still given male pronouns in an unnecessary scene) The thing is, these sorts of thing normally puts me off a story told in any medium, but I still loved these books and recommend them highly. It's especially frustrating, because in other ways, they are so inclusive.

Peter Grant is a cop. He wants to be in one of the exciting units, but suspects he's going to be shunted into paperwork-central. Until a ghost talks to him as witness to a murder and he's recruited into the Met's magical unit, where he gets to learn magic, liaise with gods and generally get into mystically trouble. Lesley May, his friend and fellow cop, is recruited by the department he originally hoped to join, and they work together on the big plot of the first book. The end of the second book gives me a lot of hope for how that will progress...

Magic is not easy to learn. I really like that. Spells are made by combining smaller spells (makes me think of Lords of Gossamer and Shadow); to learn a small spell, you need to be taught the forma by another practitioner (the second book touches on how the founder of the tradition, Sir Isaac Newton, originally identified the forma) and then spend months practicing it. Magic fries processors in technology, like mobile phones. This is fun and interesting: Grant's study of magic and investigations with it are very scientific and I enjoy his curiousity.

Now, to get my hands on the next one...

 

Downtime

Sorry to have been so quiet recently - I've been busy! Not with anything exciting, just busy at work so tired at home, and busy with friends visiting, and it was my birthday recently so I've been busy with books, and I got caught up by a tv show called Trapped whose story telling was so strong I couldn't stop watching! I'm not someone who can just watch tv, though - I'm too much of a fidgit - so I dug out my needles and some yarn homespun by a friend and started knitting... and haven't stopped. The needles are my new bamboo needles and are lovely to work with, whilst the yarns are a mix of fibres, but mostly soft wools like merino or blue faced leicester, but also alpaca and sometimes with things like silk or bamboo mixed in: they're an absolute pleasure to knit with.

My current abilities start and stop at scarves, headbands, and other small items that don't require much shape. My favourite stitch is the moss stitch: it's simple enough that it doesn't require my full attention; the rhythm is hypnotic; and it looks really pretty at the end. YouTube is my friend every time it comes to trying something new - the internet is a wonderful resource and I'm grateful to live in this age. I'm developing a bit of a glut of scarves, though a couple of projects I unpicked rather than binding off because I wanted to reuse the yarn for something more exciting in the future and was just knitting for the pleasure of it. I've got some circular needles I want to try out, and I really want to knit a simple shawl, so knitting's on the cards for at least a little while longer.

I've been suffering a great deal of pain recently. A work health assessment made me realise it's not normal to be in constant pain, but the pain I've been in has been worse than the low level I'm used to. A friend with Ehler Danlos Syndrome has been trying for some time to get me to get a diagnosis of the same, but from what I've read I think I actually have generic Joint Hypermobility Syndrome, which is sometimes conflated with EDS and it's not clear if they're the same or not, but if they are then it's the one with the fewest really horrible symptoms. However, I do have nearly all the symptoms of JHS (never suffered a dislocation), and it explains nearly all my health problems (not asthma or depression, but basically everything else) and a few of the nicer things too, like how people never believe I'm as old as I am - and I love being hypermobile. So I have a GP's appointment week after next and I'm hoping they'll diagnose me there and then, but they might need to refer me onwards. Not that a diagnosis will mean much, but I'm one of those people who feels better with a name for things. 

One of the best things is that exercises like yoga, pilates, dance and aerial circus are recommended for JHS as they build core strength (particularly around the joints) and keep you moving and stretching, which is best (and against the intuitive idea that you should keep the joints still: I know from experience that causes me a lot more pain. This is why physiotherapy is often recommended, but you are advised to seek a specialist who understands your body's requirements).

My favourite birthday message came from my friend Troll Chris (of I Love the Corps): "A new level is acquired. Due to all the acrobatics, I suggest another level in Rogue. (Also, Happy Fern-Day.)". I think I'll take his advice, even if my skill points are going into knitting and computer programming.

Inspirational People: Ursula K. Le Guin

My triumvirate of favourite authors, I have mentioned before, consists of Sir Terry Pratchett, Patrick Rothfuss, and Ursula K. Le Guin. Of these, Ursula Le Guin rules queen. (Most of the time, anyway. I can be fickle.)

Photo © 2014 Jack Liu

I grew up in a house of books, and it was wonderful. I remember learning to read with my Mum, but I don't remember not being able to read at least a little any more than I can remember not being able to talk at least a little. I am grateful to my parents and my genetics for that - it's taken much longer for my very dyslexic younger sister to read with the pleasure I take for granted.

But despite her dyslexia, when my Dad was preparing his will and asked my younger siblings and I if there were any books we particularly wanted, we each immediately requested the Le Guins. He trawls charity shops for her older books (older books have a particular feel as well as that biblichor smell that makes them more desirable), and gives any he already has to whichever child arrives first and doesn't own that one.

Before anything else by Le Guin, I read the first volume of her short story collection, The Wind's Twelve Quarters. Many of the stories affected me - Darkness Box and The Word of Unbinding stand out particularly because each spoke to my fear of death, but it was Semly's Necklace that cut me the deepest, because as well as my fear of death it sang to the gaping loss of my mother half a life before.

Rocannon's World was the first of her novels I read. It's my memory that I read The Wind's Twelve Quarters because my Dad wanted me to read Semly's Necklace in preparation for Rocannon's World, but having recently re-read the novel I realise Semly's Necklace - or a version of it - makes the first chapter so perhaps I'm wrong. I enjoyed A Wizard of Earthsea, which I read later, but not as much as her science fiction and not as much as my Dad hoped I would, but I want to re-read it now because I think my adult mind will find more in it than my child's mind, seeking adventure, did.

My favourite title of any book ever is The Word for World is Forest (I also love Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind, and Le Guin comments on how beautiful his language is in that book), but my favourite of all her books - the one that had the biggest impact on shaping the way I think - is The Left Hand of Darkness. I will try not to say much so as not to give spoilers, but I was a young teen when I read it, and gender was a very fixed and binary thing to me, and I'm thankful to have read this book then so it could have such an impact on me and open my eyes to the world as it is, instead of as society pretends it is.

I am currently reading Dancing at the Edge of the World. It makes me smirk and want to cry and above all it makes me think. There have been many highlights, but something I particularly enjoyed was the way she shared a piece she'd written a decade earlier that she no longer fully agreed with. Instead of presenting it in a changed form with no explanation, she has presented it in it's original, with additional italic annotations explaining what she no longer agrees with and why, and how she would re-word aspects if she were to write it now (or at least, the now of when this was published). It is all the more powerful for it: to be able to admit that our opinions can change is a vital step in communication, in community building. 

I have tagged this 'inspirational people' because her fiction has had a huge impact on me; the worlds she has created have affected the way I view this world; her poetry in prose is something I strive towards (although, it is my own style, my own poetry, I am seeking). She is part of why I can't help but write, why story holds me so closely, but she is also part of why I am comfortable calling myself feminist, and why at least trying to be inclusive, intersectional in my feminism matters to me.

Reading Dancing at the Edge of the World, I am realising that her voice is so gentle and so strong, it compels me to seek mine. I could not (should not) write her stories, but she is a pilot star as I seek my own.