So a conversation I had with @nocommentcat a few days ago made me realize people don’t know why I named my fic “Planted one day by a glancing dart” (and why I didn’t capitalize each word— yes I know the proper punctuation would be that but this is how the fic is titled *for a reason*). I just kinda wanted to yap a little bit about it so bear with me lol.
So all my fics are titled after song lyrics except for the fic where I post the drafts for Planted. I have two Bioshock fics on the main pseudo of my AO3 account and two TADC fics on my AlliumSympathy pseudo.
Just be warned, even tho these were posted just last year I don’t think my Bioshock ones are very good. I hate first person but I let my brother convince me to write them in first person and it made them *suck*.
The song I got the titles from is “Tongues and Teeth” by the Crane Wives. The song lyric is “I know that you mean so well/But I am not a vessel for your good intent”. The series title, “Teeth are all I can give to you”, are also references to “Tongues and Teeth”. The lyric it’s based on is “I’ve grown a mouth so sharp and cruel/It’s all that I can give to you”.
Why did I use “Tongues and Teeth”? It’s not just because I suck at naming things (though I do), it’s because of how the song reads to me. It’s basically a person feeling they’re unlovable and will only hurt the people they love but if the person they’re singing to accepts that they can stay. I wanted to explore that bc I see both Subject Delta and Eleanor Lamb seeing themselves as the singer and the other as the person they’re singing to.
Now obviously I don’t think I really got that across because trying to write in first person really made my brain itch in a bad way.
With my two TADC fics I feel a lot better about, I picked both their titles from the song “Daisy Bell”— one because of its association with AIs being the first song sung by a computer, two because I really like “Daisy Bell”, three because it’s a love song and that has a deliciously painful irony.
“I and my Daisy Bell” is the first fic I wrote inspired by @fadinglight3443 Hijacked AU, based on a doodle they did in response to an ask I sent. The full line of what it comes from is “We will go tandem as man and wife/Daisy, Daisy!/Peddling away down the road of life/I and my Daisy Bell”
This fic is what it says on the tin: Abel forces Caine to dance with him. He taunts Caine by singing Caine’s favorite song, which in this context makes Caine extra uncomfy bc of the romantic connotations of not just the song but dancing as well. The sorta homo-erotic tension of forcing your enemy to dance with you kinda thing.
The fully lyric of where “Planted one day by a glancing dart” comes from is “There is a flower within my heart/ Daisy, Daisy!/ Planted one day by a glancing dart/ Planted by Daisy Bell”.
I think this one is kinda self explanatory, but one big thing I want to explore in Planted is hypocrisy and the tendency of people to blame the other person when they do something bad rather than feel guilty about themselves. A sorta “they made me do it, it’s their fault” kinda thing. “I wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t done this thing first”.
This especially with the trend of people feeling some sort of lust and rather than control themselves blame the person they’re sexualizing. I’m Christian, AFAB on top of that. I’ve been told my whole life to cover up. To not be a temptation. Even though Jesus says if your eye causes you to sin you should pluck it out. 😒
So I’m sorta exploring the two sides that mindset produces— the guilt over having anything bad happening to you (because that’s all that mindset does. Produce *immense* amount of guilt in the victim) and the guilt of feeling any want to *do* that leading not to a decrease in the behavior but a more violent doing of the thing and just blaming the other person.
“I may have done that thing, but the desire was planted in me by that other person.”
Anyways. That’s me done yapping about my writing process :3
