a feather boa and the theme to "A Summer Place" ([info]prehistoric_sea) wrote,
@ 2009-04-23 10:57:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend  Next Entry
Myths to Live By (Jack/Daniel, NC-17)
Length: 1000 words Warnings/Spoilers: none A/N: Beta by [info]princessofg. Title is from Joseph Campbell. Summary: AU where Daniel is genderqueer. Myths to Live By

(20 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]advection
2009-04-23 04:49 pm UTC (link)
I love that narrative voice for Jack. Over and above all the exploration of sexuality and love in the piece, that is a flavor of smart!Jack I don't think I've seen before, and it's delicious, not least for how seasoned it is by the flavor of Daniel. You can taste them seeping into each other. Yum.

There's also a combination of bleakness and melting beauty that really appeals to me. And I have so much love for Jack's love of Daniel's transitioning body.

The pronouns are a bit of an obstacle for me, but that's always such an impossible call. 'S/he' never works because I read 'She,' and I like 'Ze' a lot. For 'hir' I read 'his' even though I hear 'her.' They're like the thing at the start about halves of two different words not making a word that means something midway between them. I think the fic would work for me with male pronouns, but only if this Daniel is FTM, and I get the impression that the place midway between is the destination, in which case some kind of new or neutral or combo pronouns are totally necessary. Just musing aloud here, really. Frakking English. *g*

I love that you wrote this.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
You said what I was going to say...only way better :)
[info]lunabee34
2009-04-23 05:42 pm UTC (link)
I love the way that the use of these particular pronouns (rather than "they" and "their" as I've seem sometimes used) force the reader to consistently acknowledge throughout the reading that Daniel is becoming, that even though in the first sentence, Jack denies (or rather repeats Daniel's denial) that this liminal place, this interstice between male and female, is the destination--it is the space Daniel currently occupies.

I think this lines of Jack's : (I can’t do that. I can’t be post-anything. I’m a man. That’s it.) is particularly fine.

And this observation: (Odd that we make penetration the act of dominance. It could just as easily have gone the other way: food penetrates, but it’s the consumed, not the consumer, ‘taking’ it could just as easily been taking in.) is exquisite. What a fascinating insight into the ways in which all sexual expressions are simultaneously (and for both parties) exercises in both masochism and sadism, penetration and reception, dominance and submission.

OMG I'm sorry I edited this like fifty billion times. *ducks*



Edited at 2009-04-23 05:43 pm UTC

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
This fic could spawn entire essays :-)
[info]advection
2009-04-24 12:03 pm UTC (link)
::nodnod:: I loved those lines too.

I agree that neutral pronouns help the reader, and I'm fascinated by the question of journey vs. destination in the fic. If it's a journey with a male destination, male pronouns would have worked for me, because the fic itself establishes the female and transitional/liminal qualities of Daniel's body, but I do mean for me, not necessarily for the fic ... and the more I think about it the more I think that the space Daniel's occupying on a continuum is, if not Daniel's intended/desired destination, the focal point here: what it's like for the two of them, right now, regardless of the qualities Daniel ultimate wants ze's body to have. And I keep wanting to put quotes around 'male' and 'female.' The language I have feels inadequate. I sympathize with your fifty billion edits! *g*

I do keep thinking about the fic -- it's stayed with me in a powerful way.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: This fic could spawn entire essays :-)
[info]lunabee34
2009-04-26 10:42 pm UTC (link)
Yes! Yes! You should write that essay. I would read it. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: You said what I was going to say...only way better :)
[info]prehistoric_sea
2009-04-27 07:50 pm UTC (link)
Thank you so much [info]lunabee34!

The prompt was actually to use to gender neutral pronouns.

What a fascinating insight into the ways in which all sexual expressions are simultaneously (and for both parties) exercises in both masochism and sadism, penetration and reception, dominance and submission.

*pets the comment in a hopefully non-creepy way* This was something I was thinking about before I wrote this and it found it's way in. How penetration is equated with submission in slash (and other places) is something I'm interested in; I'm far from having a handle on the issue.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: You said what I was going to say...only way better :)
[info]lunabee34
2009-04-29 02:38 am UTC (link)
All petting equally beloved. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]princessofg
2009-04-23 09:46 pm UTC (link)
I asked her the same thing when I read the version for beta, and the idea here (I may be jumping in inappropriately, I realize -- I was but the beta) is that Daniel is indeed identifying as genderqueer and not FtM.... Daniel would have insisted on the new pronouns, Daniel does not define as male or female but something else.

I wondered if that would come through in the story, and we talked about it. I had to read up on the meanings of genderqueer as opposed to transgender to get what she was after.

I found this story incredibly moving and haunting. I love how P_S is stretching my reading tastes and my view of these characters.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]advection
2009-04-24 12:22 pm UTC (link)
I honestly was not criticizing or bewildered by the pronoun choice, just musing about how it affected me as I read, and whether alternative neutral/blended pronouns would have worked better for me. Great point about what Daniel would want/insist on, which of course is how Jack would think, and the narrative voice is Jack's, so.

My comment probably seemed loaded towards the question of the pronouns, too, which is an inaccurate reflection of what affected me about the fic. I should have waited a day or two and read several more times and then feedbacked. But that way lies the trap of failing to fb at all. And 'Awesome, loved it' wasn't enough. There's a lot more going on in the fic than a pronoun choice.

'Haunting' is a good word for it! It's also got me thinking about the trans biases I brought to it. I was only just starting to think more flexibly after two reads, even with the 'genderqueer' descriptor in the summary line. I know I'll be coming back for more re-reads.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]princessofg
2009-04-24 01:08 pm UTC (link)
Your comment didn't strike me as negative at all.

I had raised some of the same issues you did, in the beta, and I had to educate myself further to get what she was after, which was a Good Thing.

Definitely rereading.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]prehistoric_sea
2009-04-27 08:01 pm UTC (link)
[info]paian and [info]princessofg: I really appreciate your feedback, guys. I think that's one of the nicest things you can say about a fic--that it sticks with you. You two bring so much to this fandom.

The Jack!voice thing was what worried me most about this fic. How does a character speak, vs. how do they think? For someone like me, who lacks the mental/verbal equivalent of the metal door thingy that you lift up to retrieve your gumball (aka foot in mouth disease), there is just about no difference.

For someone like Jack, I think there would be a lot of difference, b/c of Midwestern and/or northern masculinities, military masculinities, and other things.

Also, first person scares me to death as it is. I'm you think I did okay with it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]princessofg
2009-04-27 09:46 pm UTC (link)
the first person worked great, i thought.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]advection
2009-04-28 02:35 am UTC (link)
It's still with me, so it definitely stuck. I love this fic.

Jack's first-person voice is great.

I feel I need to clarify about the pronouns. I should have realized that if I didn't speak more carefully I would open up some kind of can of worms, and now I'm regretting it, so I'll feel better if I'm clear: I was not thrown by the neutral pronouns. I've read a lot of fiction that uses neutral pronouns. The particular neutral pronouns you chose didn't work too well for me. They felt orthographically inconsistent with each other. I've also changed my mind about the possibility that male pronouns would work as well or better. In my reading of the fic now, neutral pronouns were absolutely the way to go, and if the fic started with a 'use neutral pronouns' prompt and you developed the story around that, I think you did an awesome job. Thanks for being tolerant of my unclear right-after-reading musings.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]prehistoric_sea
2009-05-11 05:01 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for telling me paian! I used ze/hir just because those are the ones I've seen most, and I don't like sie . . . I know mer is sometimes paired with ze, but it makes me think of mermaid. Anyway, I'm flattered you considered it worth a reread!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]prehistoric_sea
2009-04-27 08:06 pm UTC (link)
There's also a combination of bleakness and melting beauty that really appeals to me. And I have so much love for Jack's love of Daniel's transitioning body.

thank you!!(eleventy)

I really wanted Daniel to be beautiful in this, but I was terrified it would come off as fetishizing.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]advection
2009-04-28 02:37 am UTC (link)
It didn't, to me. Daniel and the fic are both very beautiful.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]fyere
2009-04-25 02:45 am UTC (link)
Love this. I've never read anything with a genderqueer character before, and the pronouns were tripping me up as well, so I had to read it through four or five times to absorb it properly.

Their relationship and the way Jack is so loving and accepting of Daniel and who ze is and what ze needs.

Now, I am thinking thinky things, but my brain is a little broken so perhaps I'll feedback some more in the morning. But I like this very much.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]prehistoric_sea
2009-04-27 08:03 pm UTC (link)
[info]fyere: thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to read and comment.

Their mutual acceptance of themselves and each other was what I was really going for here; I'm glad you think I did okay with it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]hivesofactivity
2009-04-27 11:12 pm UTC (link)
I, too, loved this. I did trip on the pronouns at first, but I liked tripping on the pronouns, thought it was necessary, as a way for me to understand that where Daniel was, was indeed the destination rather than just a stage on a journey. And it was a very clear way to show that Jack - who in many ways strikes me as a very traditional guy, despite his professed special forces rejection here of 'normal' - respects and had accepted what Daniel had told him, enough for his internal narration to naturally reflect that. (It also made me think of that piece UK LeGuin wrote about how Left Hand Of Darkness would have been completely different with different pronouns, and it makes me want to go reread Birthday Of The World as I can't remember how she chose pronouns there.)

I love the exploration about how Daniel, with his specific baseline of is-an-anthropologist, would see his own body and gender roles. Oh, and Jack's love of Daniel, which includes where Daniel is, comes through so very clearly.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]hivesofactivity
2009-04-27 11:21 pm UTC (link)
...and I wanted to add that the sex scenes, particularly the first one, with Jack on his knees, also reinforce that Jack has fully accepted this this is where Daniel is and that Jack likes it; doesn't just deal with it or 'tolerate' it (how I hate toleration sometimes!), but loves Daniel's body every bit as much as he loves Daniel's mind.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]prehistoric_sea
2009-05-11 05:03 pm UTC (link)
Thank you so much for your kind feedback! I think the pronouns would be a hard change for Jack, but in the end he's a military man and he liked procedures, so I think he could get behind as hey, this is SOP for Daniel, this is what we're going to do.

Glad you liked the sex! Sex is difficult for me to write.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(20 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…