symbolism is DIFFFICULT, okay, y'all
Aug. 28th, 2011 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
esmenet
(This is exactly the sort of thing I should not be doing when I have three-and-a-half essays to write before tomorrow and a scene-bunny bouncing around in my head. Bite me.)
I feel like everyone will be able to guess my fics in anonymous writing fests now, because all they'll have to do is pick the one with the over-symbolic title.
Since this fic I'm working on is part of Knife & Ink, I clearly need to first think about the connotations of that series title. Ink here is poetry, legends, records. History. Knowledge. It's also, more basically, earth and water. Knives are, obviously, weapons, usually for defence or surprise. Perhaps betrayal and sadism as well—"backstabbing", "twisting the knife", etc. They're usually more intimate than swords, and with less of a heroic image. They're forged metal, so earth and fire. Broadly and character-wise, the knife is Mai and the ink is Zuko, but that's not entirely true. Certainly not as true as it was when I started plotting this giant thing. More exactly, ink is the transmission and use of information or history, and knives are direct, immediate, and personal action.
Well, that's all well and good. But I want this title to match up with wild flowers that are never seen in spring, so it's a little more complicated. Mai is, of course, the flowers mentioned in that title. However, since the title is adapted from a winter poem in the Kokin Wakashuu, those flowers are actually snow. Which does fit with the sub-sections I have worked out—Spring is when our story starts, when things just start to get going, Summer is when they get much worse, Autumn is when everything starts to get better again, and Winter is when everything's pretty much cooled down—but makes this whole 'titling' business even more complex. Because I really like the symbolism of Mai as a breath of cool air, a forewarning of winter, but now I really want a title that plays on both snow/winter and flowers. And I can't think of any.
I think reading translations of Heian-era winter poems again lies in my near future.
I have finally come up with a way to title the Hermione-in-Ohtori fic! Unfortunately, it means I have to hunt down some alchemical terms and see if any of them work.
I did manage to finish all but one of the essays before I finished this post! Booyah.
I feel like everyone will be able to guess my fics in anonymous writing fests now, because all they'll have to do is pick the one with the over-symbolic title.
Since this fic I'm working on is part of Knife & Ink, I clearly need to first think about the connotations of that series title. Ink here is poetry, legends, records. History. Knowledge. It's also, more basically, earth and water. Knives are, obviously, weapons, usually for defence or surprise. Perhaps betrayal and sadism as well—"backstabbing", "twisting the knife", etc. They're usually more intimate than swords, and with less of a heroic image. They're forged metal, so earth and fire. Broadly and character-wise, the knife is Mai and the ink is Zuko, but that's not entirely true. Certainly not as true as it was when I started plotting this giant thing. More exactly, ink is the transmission and use of information or history, and knives are direct, immediate, and personal action.
Well, that's all well and good. But I want this title to match up with wild flowers that are never seen in spring, so it's a little more complicated. Mai is, of course, the flowers mentioned in that title. However, since the title is adapted from a winter poem in the Kokin Wakashuu, those flowers are actually snow. Which does fit with the sub-sections I have worked out—Spring is when our story starts, when things just start to get going, Summer is when they get much worse, Autumn is when everything starts to get better again, and Winter is when everything's pretty much cooled down—but makes this whole 'titling' business even more complex. Because I really like the symbolism of Mai as a breath of cool air, a forewarning of winter, but now I really want a title that plays on both snow/winter and flowers. And I can't think of any.
I think reading translations of Heian-era winter poems again lies in my near future.
I have finally come up with a way to title the Hermione-in-Ohtori fic! Unfortunately, it means I have to hunt down some alchemical terms and see if any of them work.
I did manage to finish all but one of the essays before I finished this post! Booyah.
