(no subject)

[iniquiticity]

Anonymous asked
While I am still somewhat emotionally compromised by today's chapter, I am intrigued by Greenhouses fencing. Is Alex super competitive? Who is the better fencer? Is there sexual tension involved?

of course alex is super competitive.

i actually think that george is not a very good fencer. he has grace, but it’s not the kind that goes well with the quick precision of fencing. george is just too slow, especially in his older age. he doesn’t look flittering around like a bee like a good fencer. instead he looks more like a staggering giant. but it’s rude to challenge someone above your station to fence, so he mostly doesn’t have to worry about.

lafayette is an excellent fencer, for Reasons.

ok here’s the best part of the story: alex has never fenced a day in his life. this is because phillip schuyler saw no fucking reason to fight with him about this becuase his whole goddamn life is avoiding fighting with his shitty adopted son (do not feel sorry for either of them: they are both assholes.) so like… why would he go through the effort of finding alex a fencing teacher when all alex will do is offend and scandalize them. so alex never learned to fence under the schuylers, and he was probably too embarrassed to admit his fencing noobness in college, and obviously there was no fencing in the a.ham childhood. so fastforward to post-greenhouses and somehow it comes up alex has never fenced. and george is like “it’s not that hard, i’ll teach you”

but a) george is not a very good fencer b) he’s a bad teacher and c) alex is a shit student. so what tries to be “george teaches alex how to fence” becomes “alex yells at george for being a shit teaher and george yells at alex for being a shit student.

i think they get into a fight about it and pout off for a while. then george hires a teacher for alex but the teacher is like insanely dour and awful. knoweldgeable and stuff! but like it’s the worst and alex hates it. once george comes down to watch a lesson and he’s like “wow that teacher’s terrible.” and then him and alex have a good secret laugh about how bad the teacher is. so george fires the teacher and they make up and george resolves to be a better teacher and alex a better student. so they try again and there’s sexually-charged fencing and at the end they bang.

and then peggy schuyler becomes alex’s fencing teacher and she puts him on his ass ALL the time and george secretly delights in it.