Poem: "Crosswise"
Oct. 18th, 2012 02:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem fills a square on my card for the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
kink_bingo fest. This fest encourages people to push the limits of their comfort zone by creating erotica, pr0n, smut, and other sexy stuff in the many flavors of kinky, sensual, and otherwise exotic activities. I'm hoping to attract some new readers for my writing.
The following story belongs to Schrodinger's Heroes, featuring an apocryphal television show supported by an imaginary fandom. It's science fiction about quantum physics and saving the world from alternate dimensions. It features a very mixed cast in terms of ethnicity and sexual orientation. This project developed with input from multiple people, and it's open for everyone to play in. You can read more about the background, the characters, and a bunch of assorted content on the menu page.
Fandoms: Original (Schrodinger's Heroes)
Kink: Crossdressing
Medium: Poetry
Summary/Preview: In the thumbnail of the episode "Skin Deep" are references to Quinn presenting both as masculine and as feminine in different situations. This is an inside look at how and why.
Content Notes: No standard notes apply.
Additional Information: NSFW. Canonical trans/genderqueer character (Quinn is genderqueer). Frottage. Oral sex. Waiting for marriage. Also worth noting is that Quinn's flavor of genderqueer can vary from one fanwork to another. Here Quinn has both a masculine and a feminine persona -- perhaps slightly OOC because of that binary, but this is alter!Quinn not core!Quinn.
"Crosswise"
Sometimes truth, like beauty,
only goes skin deep.
Quinn is full of questions without answers,
passion more complicated than flowers.
When Quinn goes out en homme,
he is a revolutionary.
He fights fiercely against oppression,
refusing to obey hateful men
just because they have dark skin.
He throws molotov cocktails and smuggles guns,
trains resistance fighters with his hard body and harder ways.
He has a girlfriend who brings out the worst in him.
She wants a bad boy, and Quinn can be bad for her.
He grinds against her, the bulge under his fly promising
but never keeping the promise, always hidden.
He hoists her up by her hips and pins her against the alley wall,
burying his face between her legs until she cries for pleasure.
Quinn's girlfriend does not know
that there is anything more to him than this.
This is who he is
with short red hair like fire,
clad in black leather that smells of cigarette smoke,
jingling with chains and rings of keys,
light glinting on knife hilts and gun butts.
There is a caveman in Quinn, and he wants out,
and sometimes Quinn dresses up and lets him out.
When Quinn goes out en femme,
she is a pacifist.
She argues in favor of blank rights, insisting
that nobody should be washed out of history
just because they have fair skin.
She throws rallies and fundraisers,
trains activists in nonviolent resistance and consensus.
She has a boyfriend who brings out the best in her.
He wants a good girl, and Quinn can be good for him.
She cuddles against him when they go to a movie,
her bosom soft against his chest, felt but never seen.
She holds hands with him, and kisses his thin lips,
whispering desires held by intent to wait for marriage.
Quinn's boyfriend does not know
that there is anything more to her than this.
This is who she is
with long blonde hair like sunlight,
clad in smooth pink cotton that smells of perfume,
jingling with bangle bracelets about both wrists,
light glinting on diamonds at throat and earlobes.
There is a modern woman in Quinn, and she wants out,
and sometimes Quinn dresses up and lets her out.
No one knows the whole truth, both truths,
not the revolutionaries or the activists or the authorities,
not girlfriend or boyfriend or other friends.
Quinn's body is a sculpture, a statement
that is never still and never silent.
Every garment has its own tale to tell,
its own urge to arouse and to gratify.
This is its own wisdom and its own secret.
Quinn is a man.
Quinn is a woman.
These two truths share one skin,
trading places as gracefully as they change clothes.
* * *
Notes
1) en homme -- as a man
2) en femme -- as a woman; used in crossdressing and transgender communities to indicate dressing and presenting a feminine persona.
3) In this context, "blank" is a racist term for a white person, equivalent to "n*gg*r." The alter!America is one where Native American and African forces prevailed, and it didn't turn out any better.
4) Consider that there different types of crossdressers. Most are men who, usually for brief periods, dress and act to express their anima or inner woman; or women expressing their inner man. This may be for erotic, professional, philosophical, entertainment, or other reasons. A few crossdressers are the flavor of genderqueer where they feel approximately equal between the two poles, and switch back and forth frequently based on mood or circumstance. Alter!Quinn is splitting time about evenly between the two.
kink_bingo fest. This fest encourages people to push the limits of their comfort zone by creating erotica, pr0n, smut, and other sexy stuff in the many flavors of kinky, sensual, and otherwise exotic activities. I'm hoping to attract some new readers for my writing.The following story belongs to Schrodinger's Heroes, featuring an apocryphal television show supported by an imaginary fandom. It's science fiction about quantum physics and saving the world from alternate dimensions. It features a very mixed cast in terms of ethnicity and sexual orientation. This project developed with input from multiple people, and it's open for everyone to play in. You can read more about the background, the characters, and a bunch of assorted content on the menu page.
Fandoms: Original (Schrodinger's Heroes)
Kink: Crossdressing
Medium: Poetry
Summary/Preview: In the thumbnail of the episode "Skin Deep" are references to Quinn presenting both as masculine and as feminine in different situations. This is an inside look at how and why.
Content Notes: No standard notes apply.
Additional Information: NSFW. Canonical trans/genderqueer character (Quinn is genderqueer). Frottage. Oral sex. Waiting for marriage. Also worth noting is that Quinn's flavor of genderqueer can vary from one fanwork to another. Here Quinn has both a masculine and a feminine persona -- perhaps slightly OOC because of that binary, but this is alter!Quinn not core!Quinn.
"Crosswise"
Sometimes truth, like beauty,
only goes skin deep.
Quinn is full of questions without answers,
passion more complicated than flowers.
When Quinn goes out en homme,
he is a revolutionary.
He fights fiercely against oppression,
refusing to obey hateful men
just because they have dark skin.
He throws molotov cocktails and smuggles guns,
trains resistance fighters with his hard body and harder ways.
He has a girlfriend who brings out the worst in him.
She wants a bad boy, and Quinn can be bad for her.
He grinds against her, the bulge under his fly promising
but never keeping the promise, always hidden.
He hoists her up by her hips and pins her against the alley wall,
burying his face between her legs until she cries for pleasure.
Quinn's girlfriend does not know
that there is anything more to him than this.
This is who he is
with short red hair like fire,
clad in black leather that smells of cigarette smoke,
jingling with chains and rings of keys,
light glinting on knife hilts and gun butts.
There is a caveman in Quinn, and he wants out,
and sometimes Quinn dresses up and lets him out.
When Quinn goes out en femme,
she is a pacifist.
She argues in favor of blank rights, insisting
that nobody should be washed out of history
just because they have fair skin.
She throws rallies and fundraisers,
trains activists in nonviolent resistance and consensus.
She has a boyfriend who brings out the best in her.
He wants a good girl, and Quinn can be good for him.
She cuddles against him when they go to a movie,
her bosom soft against his chest, felt but never seen.
She holds hands with him, and kisses his thin lips,
whispering desires held by intent to wait for marriage.
Quinn's boyfriend does not know
that there is anything more to her than this.
This is who she is
with long blonde hair like sunlight,
clad in smooth pink cotton that smells of perfume,
jingling with bangle bracelets about both wrists,
light glinting on diamonds at throat and earlobes.
There is a modern woman in Quinn, and she wants out,
and sometimes Quinn dresses up and lets her out.
No one knows the whole truth, both truths,
not the revolutionaries or the activists or the authorities,
not girlfriend or boyfriend or other friends.
Quinn's body is a sculpture, a statement
that is never still and never silent.
Every garment has its own tale to tell,
its own urge to arouse and to gratify.
This is its own wisdom and its own secret.
Quinn is a man.
Quinn is a woman.
These two truths share one skin,
trading places as gracefully as they change clothes.
* * *
Notes
1) en homme -- as a man
2) en femme -- as a woman; used in crossdressing and transgender communities to indicate dressing and presenting a feminine persona.
3) In this context, "blank" is a racist term for a white person, equivalent to "n*gg*r." The alter!America is one where Native American and African forces prevailed, and it didn't turn out any better.
4) Consider that there different types of crossdressers. Most are men who, usually for brief periods, dress and act to express their anima or inner woman; or women expressing their inner man. This may be for erotic, professional, philosophical, entertainment, or other reasons. A few crossdressers are the flavor of genderqueer where they feel approximately equal between the two poles, and switch back and forth frequently based on mood or circumstance. Alter!Quinn is splitting time about evenly between the two.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-10-19 05:57 am (UTC)Funny, I've been learning to read French of late (long story), so I was able to read "en homme/en femme" without thinking about it...
The local filker/cosplay types seem to have a thing for genderbending their favourite heroes... somewhere there's a pic of them as the cast of Firefly with every single gender flipped. It was a thing of beauty...
Thoughts
Date: 2012-10-19 08:07 am (UTC)That's basically the theme of the apocryphal episode, how sad it is when changing something doesn't make much of a difference after all, and your people make the same fucked-up mistakes that somebody else did in your own world. Often I write about how things might have gone better with a different culture in charge, but that's not always how it goes.
>>nevertheless, it would be interesting to explore this universe more. Who knows, I might learn something about myself... or be able to teach something.<<
By all means, please do! I love having other folks work with Schrodinger's Heroes. I think it has a lot of potential for exploring issues of race and oppression.
>>Funny, I've been learning to read French of late (long story), so I was able to read "en homme/en femme" without thinking about it... <<
I picked it up by virtue of being linguistic SillyPutty. I know a lot of words in languages I don't actually speak.
>>The local filker/cosplay types seem to have a thing for genderbending their favourite heroes... somewhere there's a pic of them as the cast of Firefly with every single gender flipped. It was a thing of beauty...<<
If you can find it online, I'd love to see that. I'm very fond of the Firetrek image (with all the Firefly characters in starfleet uniforms).
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2012-10-20 03:02 am (UTC)I was wondering about the hair as I read this the first time. Unless there's something unexpected going on with respect to it, at least the female hair must be a wig, yes?
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2012-10-20 03:09 am (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2012-10-20 07:01 pm (UTC)Ah, and it just hit me this morning: this --
- it is not specified which (if either) persona matches the physical body
is why, or close to why, we have these:but never keeping the promise, always hidden.
whispering desires held by intent to wait for marriage.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2012-10-20 07:35 pm (UTC)That would be the easier and more obvious approach. But Quinn is a trickster, so it could be the other way around. *ponder* Or they could both be wigs.
>> Ah, and it just hit me this morning: this -- is why, or close to why, we have these: <<
Yep. Either version could be packing, or both, or neither.
Quinn
Date: 2015-03-30 02:57 am (UTC)Thon wants to express an /enormous/ range of genders, where other are happy with "only" or "mostly" one, and a few are happily so muddled and mixed that it takes a specific signal to pin down which they prefer. Some are so happily neutral that it's easy to drop any gender reference when thinking of them.
If I describe someone in jeans, polo shirt, tennis shoes and a fleece jacket, I could mean an infant all the way to a centenarian, of any gender. I need to qualify, add details, and find some signal to emphasize. Quinn just takes that costuming and description a little farther.
Re: Quinn
Date: 2015-03-30 10:10 am (UTC)Yes, exactly.
On the other hoof ... it's not faking. Saying "fake arm" for "prosthesis" is vulgar. Artificial, replacement, yes; but fake implies falseness which is not the case here. Oh, a bigot would say that, they're big on assigned sex as the only valid one and often accuse transfolk of "faking" when presenting as their true gender. But for Quinn, they're both true, equally valid expressions of a complex gender identity. The only false identity for Quinn would be only one thing. He just isn't simplistic and detests labels. So sculptural assists for masculine and feminine gender are both prosthetic equipment for Quinn.
>> Thon wants to express an /enormous/ range of genders, where other are happy with "only" or "mostly" one, and a few are happily so muddled and mixed that it takes a specific signal to pin down which they prefer. Some are so happily neutral that it's easy to drop any gender reference when thinking of them.<<
Sooth. Quinn is all the genders, and Quinn at any moment or in any dimension is just one narrow slice of those possibilities.
>>If I describe someone in jeans, polo shirt, tennis shoes and a fleece jacket, I could mean an infant all the way to a centenarian, of any gender. I need to qualify, add details, and find some signal to emphasize. Quinn just takes that costuming and description a little farther.<<
Heh, yeah. Quinn is always changing. Like a shark, if he stops moving he can't breathe.
It's why my favorite sexual orientation to write him as is Quinn/Anything That Moves. He just does not seem to consider the package a relevant concern in deciding whether he's attracted to the person. As we have seen with Juan and Schrodinger's Heroes alike, Quinn is tractive across multiple types of relationship. It doesn't have to be sexual.
Re: Quinn
Date: 2015-03-30 12:49 pm (UTC)Re: Quinn
Date: 2015-03-30 06:47 pm (UTC)