Once upon a time there was a boy. He was talkative and cheerful. He asked his mother questions that left her scrabbling to answer. He followed his big brother everywhere. They moved around a lot and he would find one girl in each town to love like the sister he wanted, not the big brother who was always playing pranks on him. When the little boy went to school he was a little shy. Still, he played some with the boys who pretended to be soldiers but more with the girls who pretended to be horses. Let's Pretend was his most favorite game in the whole world. The other boys teased him for playing with the girls. The girls started teasing him too, and the little boy stopped asking to play with anyone at school. At home he'd play with the neighbor kids or imagine stuff while watching his big brother hang out with friends. He stopped looking people in the face mostly, especially after people started latching onto the comedic value of seeing him lose his temper.
The little boy was taught a very important set of lessons by his family.
1. The worst thing you can be is a Liar or a Thief.
2. Men are assholes and women should be treated with respect.
3. Men are supposed to want/crave---- and are nearly constantly in pursuit of it
4. Men are liars
5. Don't be a Narc
6. It's okay to halftruth, cobble together multiple truths to make an untruth to get what you want :?
7. You can to anything, but you can't win against us.
8. Blood is thicker than water
9. Your Father loves you but wanted to kill us.
The little boy was very happy to learn to read, he loved fairy tales and stories where magic was real. Stories where someone who was not strong in body could be strong in another way entirely.
He read A Spell for Chameleon and loved the character who was an outcast in a land where everyone had a magical Talent. He read Ogre, Ogre and wished he could literally throw a tantrum like Tandy Nymph. He read The Lord Of The Rings and fell in love with Elves and Ents and the idea of the Garden Keeper female Ents. He read Deep Wizardry and discovered the idea of Wizardry as Language and Math. He read A Wizard of Earthsea where magic IS language. He found Shadowdancer and The Last Herald Mage and a light went off in his head. Suddenly he found stories about people who thought like him, who wanted some of the same things he did. Things that all the other characters he had read... didn't quite.
He met a friend here, an ally there. The teasing and bullying remained what they were, only now, some of it stung worse because it was laced with truth. Truth that these people were not told, things the boy had only started to admit to himself. And he wondered, "what am I doing that they guess this? Is it how I dress? (hand me downs from the late 70s and early 80s) is it how I walk?
(quick short steps gaze on the ground a few feet ahead) Is it how I speak? (bookish, soft, high)"
He tries to police his gestures, shifts his speech to run closer to the few forced friends and his family, cursing, accent bad sentence structure and all. He narrows his clothes selection to blue jeans and t-shirts even though he loves the cardigans one of his mother's friends gifted him with.
The little boy has grown into a reclusive and shy youth and discovers the touch of another.. The wrong other, the wrong set up.. It's not like the movies, or the fairy tales, or the stories. It's not sweet and bumbling and bubbling. It isn't meeting in the library or going to movies or dances. It is not even holding hands. It's "don't tell anyone" , "this is our secret". It braids with the bullying and taunts, With his mother's worry as he becomes ever quieter, angry in a sullen and internal way and she sees him lying more and more by omission.
His friends and allies introduce him to a new thing: He already learned that the wrathful ONE GOD was not the only way to look at divinity. That to some magic is a way of channeling the forces within and around one to impress one's will upon the world. He grabbed for this chance thinking "I want to make things better." His new friends though, they take the idea a step to the left. Past lives as more than human. Being other. A new friend and mentor arrives. In the boy's head and belly there is the urge to twist the old sweet notions of the meet-cute askew but the protective (liar) habits say: male, friend, put them at ease or they will not be friend. The boy latches on to this mentor, and his hand-me-downs start containing more black slacks, black t-shirts and polos. He starts wearing his shirts tucked in and his pants belted after a poking comment from said mentor about where the hem of the shirts landed and highlighted. He grows his hair out and revels in the discovery that his hair has gone from straight and golden brown to darkest brown spiral curls. His Mother and one of his allies react badly to these changes as well as the change of his speech from the California mountain slang to a more prim and proper voice. His occasional lash out becomes focused and biting filled with an intent to pierce people in their weak spots in an attempt to make them back off and stay backed off.
He reads and re-reads Firestarter and Carrie the anger that has been growing inside him. With every moment of physical helplessness, every moment of emotional and verbal bullying and from enemies and friends and kin. It burns him up inside. But he can't get in fights like his mother and brother. He can't lose control, he cant drown himself in things that make him forget or he'll be just like them. But the lies and the hate and the sex and the anger and the wanting the break and the twist from the way the story should go. From the good little boy he's supposed to be. From the sweet young gentleman he's supposed to be.
So he plays make believe. He makes a mask of his totem to contain his rage and anger that terrifies him so. He makes a mask of the Dryad for whom sex and seduction is easy, who doesn't care that it has to be a secret, doesn't care who fills the need or that it isn't ice cream shops and holding hands. He makes a mask of the gentleman, the Witch.
it isn't enough. The anger and rage is still there, the confusion, the pain. The LIES. it twists him up inside and pushes him further and further into the masks, playing them... it gets easier and easier to make decisions that make sense to the masks but are dangerous for the person wearing them..
****cut for time
The little boy was taught a very important set of lessons by his family.
1. The worst thing you can be is a Liar or a Thief.
2. Men are assholes and women should be treated with respect.
3. Men are supposed to want/crave---- and are nearly constantly in pursuit of it
4. Men are liars
5. Don't be a Narc
6. It's okay to halftruth, cobble together multiple truths to make an untruth to get what you want :?
7. You can to anything, but you can't win against us.
8. Blood is thicker than water
9. Your Father loves you but wanted to kill us.
The little boy was very happy to learn to read, he loved fairy tales and stories where magic was real. Stories where someone who was not strong in body could be strong in another way entirely.
He read A Spell for Chameleon and loved the character who was an outcast in a land where everyone had a magical Talent. He read Ogre, Ogre and wished he could literally throw a tantrum like Tandy Nymph. He read The Lord Of The Rings and fell in love with Elves and Ents and the idea of the Garden Keeper female Ents. He read Deep Wizardry and discovered the idea of Wizardry as Language and Math. He read A Wizard of Earthsea where magic IS language. He found Shadowdancer and The Last Herald Mage and a light went off in his head. Suddenly he found stories about people who thought like him, who wanted some of the same things he did. Things that all the other characters he had read... didn't quite.
He met a friend here, an ally there. The teasing and bullying remained what they were, only now, some of it stung worse because it was laced with truth. Truth that these people were not told, things the boy had only started to admit to himself. And he wondered, "what am I doing that they guess this? Is it how I dress? (hand me downs from the late 70s and early 80s) is it how I walk?
(quick short steps gaze on the ground a few feet ahead) Is it how I speak? (bookish, soft, high)"
He tries to police his gestures, shifts his speech to run closer to the few forced friends and his family, cursing, accent bad sentence structure and all. He narrows his clothes selection to blue jeans and t-shirts even though he loves the cardigans one of his mother's friends gifted him with.
The little boy has grown into a reclusive and shy youth and discovers the touch of another.. The wrong other, the wrong set up.. It's not like the movies, or the fairy tales, or the stories. It's not sweet and bumbling and bubbling. It isn't meeting in the library or going to movies or dances. It is not even holding hands. It's "don't tell anyone" , "this is our secret". It braids with the bullying and taunts, With his mother's worry as he becomes ever quieter, angry in a sullen and internal way and she sees him lying more and more by omission.
His friends and allies introduce him to a new thing: He already learned that the wrathful ONE GOD was not the only way to look at divinity. That to some magic is a way of channeling the forces within and around one to impress one's will upon the world. He grabbed for this chance thinking "I want to make things better." His new friends though, they take the idea a step to the left. Past lives as more than human. Being other. A new friend and mentor arrives. In the boy's head and belly there is the urge to twist the old sweet notions of the meet-cute askew but the protective (liar) habits say: male, friend, put them at ease or they will not be friend. The boy latches on to this mentor, and his hand-me-downs start containing more black slacks, black t-shirts and polos. He starts wearing his shirts tucked in and his pants belted after a poking comment from said mentor about where the hem of the shirts landed and highlighted. He grows his hair out and revels in the discovery that his hair has gone from straight and golden brown to darkest brown spiral curls. His Mother and one of his allies react badly to these changes as well as the change of his speech from the California mountain slang to a more prim and proper voice. His occasional lash out becomes focused and biting filled with an intent to pierce people in their weak spots in an attempt to make them back off and stay backed off.
He reads and re-reads Firestarter and Carrie the anger that has been growing inside him. With every moment of physical helplessness, every moment of emotional and verbal bullying and from enemies and friends and kin. It burns him up inside. But he can't get in fights like his mother and brother. He can't lose control, he cant drown himself in things that make him forget or he'll be just like them. But the lies and the hate and the sex and the anger and the wanting the break and the twist from the way the story should go. From the good little boy he's supposed to be. From the sweet young gentleman he's supposed to be.
So he plays make believe. He makes a mask of his totem to contain his rage and anger that terrifies him so. He makes a mask of the Dryad for whom sex and seduction is easy, who doesn't care that it has to be a secret, doesn't care who fills the need or that it isn't ice cream shops and holding hands. He makes a mask of the gentleman, the Witch.
it isn't enough. The anger and rage is still there, the confusion, the pain. The LIES. it twists him up inside and pushes him further and further into the masks, playing them... it gets easier and easier to make decisions that make sense to the masks but are dangerous for the person wearing them..
****cut for time
