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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/1QQn5kb:
I’ve known this song for years, and the version I knew was by an Irish group called Danú. It’s a standard one about how a man will always betray you. Amusingly, I’ve never heard it performed by a woman. A lot of Irish songs are like that, and I don’t know why, but I’m really used to mentally adapting to male singers singing songs about being left pregnant by some false man. This song, however, unlike most, is not explicitly about being pregnant, so I suppose it really is gender-neutral; it’s addressed to ladies but that could be nonspecific I suppose.
In-universe I have sort of casually made bisexuality nearly ubiquitous. Fanon has that as a prevailing feature of the SW universe and I quite like it. It’s nice not to have to bother putting in angst about queerness. (Why am I putting in angst about racism, then? Because angst about queerness is sort of ubiquitous in fic, and angst about racism isn’t, so it’s not as well-trodden for me.) So maybe in-universe it is perfectly normal for men to sing songs about false-hearted men, and maybe biology and medical science being what they are, maybe men wind up pregnant too. Hmm? I don’t think I’ll be exploring that far, so don’t worry if mpreg is a squick, I’m not going there. But maybe folk songs do. …
Anyway. It has a verse about flying. So of course Poe sings it.
After his other song about a false lover goes viral, he switches to singing this one instead because there are no particular associations with it.
It catches Finn’s attention, though, perhaps too pointedly, and so it winds up being used as a code. Just the verse about the little swallow.
I wish I were a little swallowand I had wings, and could fly so highI’d fly to the arms of my false true loverand there I’d be content to die
For shits and giggles, though, I made the character who’s supposed to be singing it as a signal not able to sing. Because some people can’t. So she can’t sing, and so she’s trying to nonchalantly hum, and Poe is the POV character and is completely ignoring her because he doesn’t recognize the song at all, so she’s finally whistling it and he’s like why is that lady staring at me and whistling tunelessly.
Because I’ve always wondered– what if the code in your secret spy thing is to sing a song and you can’t sing? What happens then?
He leaves, and only later when the song spontaneously gets stuck in his head is he like, wait a goddamn minute.
(A not-so-secret angst of mine is that if I were in a spy thriller I would literally not notice any of the cues I’m supposed to be picking up on and I can only console myself that I’d never be in a spy thriller anyway. But it makes it hard to write realistic spy thriller elements in a story, because fuck, who even notices shit like that???)
I’ve known this song for years, and the version I knew was by an Irish group called Danú. It’s a standard one about how a man will always betray you. Amusingly, I’ve never heard it performed by a woman. A lot of Irish songs are like that, and I don’t know why, but I’m really used to mentally adapting to male singers singing songs about being left pregnant by some false man. This song, however, unlike most, is not explicitly about being pregnant, so I suppose it really is gender-neutral; it’s addressed to ladies but that could be nonspecific I suppose.
In-universe I have sort of casually made bisexuality nearly ubiquitous. Fanon has that as a prevailing feature of the SW universe and I quite like it. It’s nice not to have to bother putting in angst about queerness. (Why am I putting in angst about racism, then? Because angst about queerness is sort of ubiquitous in fic, and angst about racism isn’t, so it’s not as well-trodden for me.) So maybe in-universe it is perfectly normal for men to sing songs about false-hearted men, and maybe biology and medical science being what they are, maybe men wind up pregnant too. Hmm? I don’t think I’ll be exploring that far, so don’t worry if mpreg is a squick, I’m not going there. But maybe folk songs do. …
Anyway. It has a verse about flying. So of course Poe sings it.
After his other song about a false lover goes viral, he switches to singing this one instead because there are no particular associations with it.
It catches Finn’s attention, though, perhaps too pointedly, and so it winds up being used as a code. Just the verse about the little swallow.
I wish I were a little swallowand I had wings, and could fly so highI’d fly to the arms of my false true loverand there I’d be content to die
For shits and giggles, though, I made the character who’s supposed to be singing it as a signal not able to sing. Because some people can’t. So she can’t sing, and so she’s trying to nonchalantly hum, and Poe is the POV character and is completely ignoring her because he doesn’t recognize the song at all, so she’s finally whistling it and he’s like why is that lady staring at me and whistling tunelessly.
Because I’ve always wondered– what if the code in your secret spy thing is to sing a song and you can’t sing? What happens then?
He leaves, and only later when the song spontaneously gets stuck in his head is he like, wait a goddamn minute.
(A not-so-secret angst of mine is that if I were in a spy thriller I would literally not notice any of the cues I’m supposed to be picking up on and I can only console myself that I’d never be in a spy thriller anyway. But it makes it hard to write realistic spy thriller elements in a story, because fuck, who even notices shit like that???)
no subject
Date: 2016-03-14 02:04 am (UTC)I like it, because I have a not-so-secret Thing about SF and the translation convention, and this indirectly ties into it. After all, if this is a long time ago and far, far away, those aren't humans; we're just seeing human actors because that's easier. It's a 'translation,' in a sense, of the story, a way of presenting it to us so that it makes sense instinctively, to allow us to relate to the characters and follow along with the story while staying undistracted (because we wouldn't be able to follow body language or know their physical limitations - we wouldn't be surprised or distrustful or happy in the right places, if we saw the characters as they "really" are).
That being so, we don't know the genders of the characters, nor what their norms are! Unless it's relevant to the plot that they have some kind of sex/mating-related taboos, there's no reason to incorporate human sexuality taboos into the story.