safe and safely locked away back home.
Ever randomly read comments where people are talking about you(/poking holes in your fic) and want to jump in and explain all the problems they're pointing out? A month after the original comments? And also be like: wow, I need to start putting a "please be all condescending and sceptical about my writing to my face, thanks!" thing in my headers (such as they are).
Welcome to my today! It's magical. (I link for context's sake, and context's sake alone.)
Apparently the problem with "Document" is that Patrick is stealth (super-duper stealth, which transfolk never are in our brave modern world), and that he needs to be reminded that his passport has an F-for-female on it. Because hi, the angst of being trans so totally overwhelms everything else in a transperson's life that they would never ever forget, even for a moment (after living full-time for four years and also just getting their band signed to a major label and being booked on a European tour, quelle excitar), that their legal documents do not match their gender presentation.
What the fuck? Who thinks about their passport and birth certificate 24/7, regardless of where they live? Especially when they probably rarely look at or use them (Patrick just found out he's going to England, with his band, to play music--has he thought through the process of how that will happen, exactly? I bought my registration for WinCon without fully realizing that meant going to America, and I am a reasonably intelligent adult, with bills to pay and everything). Transpeople are not ruled by their transness, okay. Our worlds do not generally revolve around it beyond a certain point (the trans agenda: buy milk, feed the dogs, get hormones, don't get killed in an alley).
AND! Did you know! Transpeople can never care about anything more than they care about Being Trans, and enacting the process of Being Trans as publicly as possible (please don't get me started on "the process of Being Trans;" or do, if you want some cheap/free entertainment). They certainly can't care about music, or their careers, or their friends more. That would be RIDICULOUS (I would elaborate more on trans!Patrick's motivations and characterization, and how I think these things come from actual!Patrick, but I want to save something for the DVD commentary, and this is long enough already).
Whatever. The stealth thing was part of the conceit--to put this story so fucking close to canon that you couldn't tell the difference. To make crazy people go, "OH. MY. GOSH. Patrick IS trans!" If everyone knew, or even if one person in the band knew (from the beginning! Yes, the rest of them eventually find out, but in the original "Document," nobody knows), that would be impossible. So at the outset, Patrick is only out to the people most necessary to him enacting his trans process in the way he wants to--his parents, his medical professionals, his siblings, his girlfriend (because I have personal reasons for wanting to talk about transpeople vs. queer community vs. stealth vs. popular culture vs. politics, and a relationship with a queer cis girl is a good platform for playing those things out).
(Also, while the sex in Boys Don't Cry is hot, I'm not terribly interested in writing about Patrick trying to fool Anna with a fake dick (someone should write about ftm!Dean Winchester trying to fool a girl with a fake dick, though. HOT). Sorry!)
The bottom line is: FOR ME, writing is about what I want to write, and what I choose to write. It's not about presenting things in the best possible way for everyone, and it's not about being a how-to manual--no matter what I'm writing. That's why there's stupidity and imperfection when I write about ethical non-monogamy, and that's why trans!Patrick is often a bit of an asshole (even though he has the Best Possible Life). I don't write to tell people How Things Are For [Insert Subculture]. The point of my writing is not politics or even necessarily personal testimony--the point of my writing is to write, to tell stories. About people, not paper dolls acting out political and theoretical dramas.
(And "Document" wasn't the whole story. It's thirteen thousand words now, and still not done, and still not the perfect trans narrative--it never will be the perfect trans narrative. There can't be a perfect trans narrative, because transpeople are just like any other nameable group: we don't have just one story, we have millions. The original "Document" and the bits I've posted since are little stories, tiny pieces of a single, highly fictionalized STORY.)
Don't misunderstand me: I'm not mad at having my premise questioned. I'm not even offended. I like talking about this shit. It's just really weird that people talk about my stuff in places I can't or am not likely to see it, and it's just one of those moments of running up against differences in what people expect from art/expect art to be ("art," whatever. I don't generally think of my writing with that term, but I guess it technically applies. It's something I made with creative skill and it serves no functional purpose in the physical world).
(I also can't help but wonder if the hole-poker is the same person who del.icio.used "Lord Knows" with a note about how implausible it was. If it's not, maybe I should just give it up to the masses and call my particular style "implausibility ftw." I don't know.)
So. Yes. If something I write smells funny, fucking say it to my face so we can talk about it, or so I can think about it. Don't you want my italics and parentheses in ur comints? Plus, it might make me a better writer. Who can complain about that! Besides people who don't want me to write at all, haha.
Lastly: dragking!Patrick icon, or "Pete's a symbolic interactionist!" icon? Or split the difference with the trannychaser one. DECISIONS DECISIONS.
Welcome to my today! It's magical. (I link for context's sake, and context's sake alone.)
Apparently the problem with "Document" is that Patrick is stealth (super-duper stealth, which transfolk never are in our brave modern world), and that he needs to be reminded that his passport has an F-for-female on it. Because hi, the angst of being trans so totally overwhelms everything else in a transperson's life that they would never ever forget, even for a moment (after living full-time for four years and also just getting their band signed to a major label and being booked on a European tour, quelle excitar), that their legal documents do not match their gender presentation.
What the fuck? Who thinks about their passport and birth certificate 24/7, regardless of where they live? Especially when they probably rarely look at or use them (Patrick just found out he's going to England, with his band, to play music--has he thought through the process of how that will happen, exactly? I bought my registration for WinCon without fully realizing that meant going to America, and I am a reasonably intelligent adult, with bills to pay and everything). Transpeople are not ruled by their transness, okay. Our worlds do not generally revolve around it beyond a certain point (the trans agenda: buy milk, feed the dogs, get hormones, don't get killed in an alley).
AND! Did you know! Transpeople can never care about anything more than they care about Being Trans, and enacting the process of Being Trans as publicly as possible (please don't get me started on "the process of Being Trans;" or do, if you want some cheap/free entertainment). They certainly can't care about music, or their careers, or their friends more. That would be RIDICULOUS (I would elaborate more on trans!Patrick's motivations and characterization, and how I think these things come from actual!Patrick, but I want to save something for the DVD commentary, and this is long enough already).
Whatever. The stealth thing was part of the conceit--to put this story so fucking close to canon that you couldn't tell the difference. To make crazy people go, "OH. MY. GOSH. Patrick IS trans!" If everyone knew, or even if one person in the band knew (from the beginning! Yes, the rest of them eventually find out, but in the original "Document," nobody knows), that would be impossible. So at the outset, Patrick is only out to the people most necessary to him enacting his trans process in the way he wants to--his parents, his medical professionals, his siblings, his girlfriend (because I have personal reasons for wanting to talk about transpeople vs. queer community vs. stealth vs. popular culture vs. politics, and a relationship with a queer cis girl is a good platform for playing those things out).
(Also, while the sex in Boys Don't Cry is hot, I'm not terribly interested in writing about Patrick trying to fool Anna with a fake dick (someone should write about ftm!Dean Winchester trying to fool a girl with a fake dick, though. HOT). Sorry!)
The bottom line is: FOR ME, writing is about what I want to write, and what I choose to write. It's not about presenting things in the best possible way for everyone, and it's not about being a how-to manual--no matter what I'm writing. That's why there's stupidity and imperfection when I write about ethical non-monogamy, and that's why trans!Patrick is often a bit of an asshole (even though he has the Best Possible Life). I don't write to tell people How Things Are For [Insert Subculture]. The point of my writing is not politics or even necessarily personal testimony--the point of my writing is to write, to tell stories. About people, not paper dolls acting out political and theoretical dramas.
(And "Document" wasn't the whole story. It's thirteen thousand words now, and still not done, and still not the perfect trans narrative--it never will be the perfect trans narrative. There can't be a perfect trans narrative, because transpeople are just like any other nameable group: we don't have just one story, we have millions. The original "Document" and the bits I've posted since are little stories, tiny pieces of a single, highly fictionalized STORY.)
Don't misunderstand me: I'm not mad at having my premise questioned. I'm not even offended. I like talking about this shit. It's just really weird that people talk about my stuff in places I can't or am not likely to see it, and it's just one of those moments of running up against differences in what people expect from art/expect art to be ("art," whatever. I don't generally think of my writing with that term, but I guess it technically applies. It's something I made with creative skill and it serves no functional purpose in the physical world).
(I also can't help but wonder if the hole-poker is the same person who del.icio.used "Lord Knows" with a note about how implausible it was. If it's not, maybe I should just give it up to the masses and call my particular style "implausibility ftw." I don't know.)
So. Yes. If something I write smells funny, fucking say it to my face so we can talk about it, or so I can think about it. Don't you want my italics and parentheses in ur comints? Plus, it might make me a better writer. Who can complain about that! Besides people who don't want me to write at all, haha.
Lastly: dragking!Patrick icon, or "Pete's a symbolic interactionist!" icon? Or split the difference with the trannychaser one. DECISIONS DECISIONS.