Questions and Answers #2

[thermalsatsuma]

amberc_uk asked:

Picture a four colour american comic book. Cheap newsprint and lurid superheroes. At the back there would always be a few pages of adverts for things such as x ray spex (always with an 'x') and sea monkeys (and oh, how I wanted to see a real, live sea monkey family), and without fail there would be a Charles Atlas body building course with a weedy guy getting sand kicked in his face.

That was me.

I was speccy, weedy and clumsy, painfully shy and with only one or two friends. I was always left to the end when the teams were chosen, along with the fat boy and the asthmatic with his inhaler. I had very little confidence in my own physical abilities. Would you be surprised if I told you that that is when I started playing Dungeons and Dragons?

Fast forward a few years, and an advert in White Dwarf magazine for a place called Treasure Trap, set in a real castle in Cheshire where you could play those games for real. I can vividly remember the first time I picked up a sword and shield, and strapped on my armour to head down into the dungeons. I wasn't the weedy 'prof' any more. I felt alive, confident and in control of my body. Our group worked hard at the game, we made our own weapons and costumes and trained at weekends, developing our skills. It was a magical time

Eventually we drifted apart, to different universities, and the magic faded.

I found glimpses of it, over the years. I did a beginners course in foil fencing, and I found that I had an aptitude for it. I started going to the club nights, but then real life intervened in the most brutal fashion possible, and I stopped going. I resigned myself to being creaky, middle aged and inept again. There's a section in the book 'Weaveworld' by Clive Barker, where the protagonist who has seen a magical realm that is his hearts desire, loses sight of it and slowly forgets, leaving only a gnawing emptyness.

That was me.

Fast forward a few more years. I went to the Sheffield Fayre and picked up a rapier for the first time. It was like coming home. It's what I've always wanted to do, but never had the chance to put into practice. The feeling when I pick up my sword is hard to articulate – in the simplest terms it is 40 inches of potentially lethal cold steel between me and somebody else, but there are also elements of space and motion, fluid vectors traced in the air. It's learning new skills, and feeling my muscles responding of their own accord. It's taking the red pill and seeing how deep the rabbit hole is.

Comments

[amberb-uk.livejournal.com]

Thankyou from me and burgi both! Beautifully written and we can but add 'say bye bye to Kansas Dorothy' *grin*

[leatherdykeuk.livejournal.com]

but there are also elements of space and motion, fluid vectors traced in the air.
YES! That's exactly it! I see those!