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crack_van2013-01-27 04:39 pm
stars-inthe-sky.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2013-01-27 04:39 pm
Entry tags:
"lost forever in the desert" by Cakedish (T)
Fandom: Terminator / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Pairing: girl!John Connor/Cameron, girl!John Connor/Riley Dawson
Length: ~3k words
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mouthmount
Author Website:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
blueinkedwalls
Why this must be read: Always-a-girl!John Connor is an interesting concept. As the central character of TSCC--Sarah herself--is female, and the human resistance has plenty of room for women, we know this isn't a universe that's particularly or inherently misogynistic...but gender still has a role to play, and "lost forever in the desert" is a smart and deeply felt exploration of that. The details of "Jane Connor" and her relationship to machines and metal are particularly interesting to me, and it's curious how much and how little changes with a simple flip of a chromosome.
“Hey, Janey, could I, uh, discuss my intentions toward your mother?” are Charley’s exact words, is how he and Jane end up shopping for rings together.
Jane probably knows less about rings than he does. When she was in foster care, she let a friend hold her head in her hands and pierce each ear three times with a stovetop-sterilized safety pin, and she likes the metal in her body, likes to twist the backings when she thinks, but rings are different. They slip down drains, get lodged in engines, knock distractingly against guns, destroy manual dexterity, hold you back.
Charley picks her up after school; her mom is working; Jane skips chess club. They eat grease-puddled pizza in the food court of the mall. It feels like they’re going to a movie, like Charley’s early attempts to get to know her. But now he’s gonna be her stepdad. First dad. Because foster dads don’t count and dead dads (not-yet-born dads) probably don’t count, and Enrique only counts on long, hot nights when she lies awake missing the way starlight would pierce the tangled arms of the trees above.
Charley finishes her crusts, gets crumbs all over his shirt, says, “So, Janey, where do you wanna start?”
The woman in the third store they visit glares at them, her bracelets clacking together as she crosses and uncrosses her arms, and Jane doesn’t know if it’s because of her ragged fingernails on the clean glass cases or because the woman thinks Jane is Charley’s teenage bride.
Across the room, Charley studies a display of rings like he didn’t already tell Jane, “They’re all blurring together; you could throw an onion ring in there with them and I wouldn’t know the difference.” He studies the rings and nods and furrows his brow and scratches at his arm so his sleeve rides up and shows the narrow jaw of his tattoo. He studies the rings and Jane studies the rings, studies the layout of the store, studies him.
Charley doesn’t wake up screaming from dreams of fire. Charley doesn’t carry death in the valleys of his palms. For Charley, the future is a ring on her mother’s finger. So Jane picks a ring that surges upward, looks almost warped, looks the most like liquid sliding between fingertips so maybe Charley’s vision of the future and her mother’s will begin to overlap.
lost forever in the desert
Pairing: girl!John Connor/Cameron, girl!John Connor/Riley Dawson
Length: ~3k words
Author on LJ:
mouthmountAuthor Website:
blueinkedwallsWhy this must be read: Always-a-girl!John Connor is an interesting concept. As the central character of TSCC--Sarah herself--is female, and the human resistance has plenty of room for women, we know this isn't a universe that's particularly or inherently misogynistic...but gender still has a role to play, and "lost forever in the desert" is a smart and deeply felt exploration of that. The details of "Jane Connor" and her relationship to machines and metal are particularly interesting to me, and it's curious how much and how little changes with a simple flip of a chromosome.
“Hey, Janey, could I, uh, discuss my intentions toward your mother?” are Charley’s exact words, is how he and Jane end up shopping for rings together.
Jane probably knows less about rings than he does. When she was in foster care, she let a friend hold her head in her hands and pierce each ear three times with a stovetop-sterilized safety pin, and she likes the metal in her body, likes to twist the backings when she thinks, but rings are different. They slip down drains, get lodged in engines, knock distractingly against guns, destroy manual dexterity, hold you back.
Charley picks her up after school; her mom is working; Jane skips chess club. They eat grease-puddled pizza in the food court of the mall. It feels like they’re going to a movie, like Charley’s early attempts to get to know her. But now he’s gonna be her stepdad. First dad. Because foster dads don’t count and dead dads (not-yet-born dads) probably don’t count, and Enrique only counts on long, hot nights when she lies awake missing the way starlight would pierce the tangled arms of the trees above.
Charley finishes her crusts, gets crumbs all over his shirt, says, “So, Janey, where do you wanna start?”
The woman in the third store they visit glares at them, her bracelets clacking together as she crosses and uncrosses her arms, and Jane doesn’t know if it’s because of her ragged fingernails on the clean glass cases or because the woman thinks Jane is Charley’s teenage bride.
Across the room, Charley studies a display of rings like he didn’t already tell Jane, “They’re all blurring together; you could throw an onion ring in there with them and I wouldn’t know the difference.” He studies the rings and nods and furrows his brow and scratches at his arm so his sleeve rides up and shows the narrow jaw of his tattoo. He studies the rings and Jane studies the rings, studies the layout of the store, studies him.
Charley doesn’t wake up screaming from dreams of fire. Charley doesn’t carry death in the valleys of his palms. For Charley, the future is a ring on her mother’s finger. So Jane picks a ring that surges upward, looks almost warped, looks the most like liquid sliding between fingertips so maybe Charley’s vision of the future and her mother’s will begin to overlap.
lost forever in the desert