L.J. Writes

In a case of synchronicity, chordatesrock put up a post about lazy genderbends just as I was searching out title ideas for a series of genderbent ATLA short fics. (This is an idea I played around with in an earlier post about genderbent fanart.)

I thought it would be cool to quote some sort of poetry in the title, so I started looking for gender imagery in poetry. I learned that androgyny was a major recurring motif in the poems of William Blake, including notably Jerusalem, where I found this promising line:

For the Male is a Furnace of beryll : the Female is a golden Loom.

So I thought of something like "Golden Furnace" or "Loom of Beryl" or both to signal the switch, but neither seems evocative enough. "Gold and Beryl" might be workable if I can't think of anything else, though it's a bit obscure. i don't think most readers would associate gold with the feminine and beryl with the masculine without having the reference explained. "Hammer and loom" is also a contrast that comes up, but ends up feeling vaguely Communistic as a title. Or maybe abstract the imagery a little, like "The Fire and the Weave?" Except, um, fire has a pretty specific meaning in my chosen universe. "Spear and Mirror?"

( ARGH )

So at current my title candidates are:

1. Single Nature's Double Name
2. Of Beryl and Gold
3. Valley Under Heaven's Arc

...None of which feels right. Maybe I'm overthinking (and over-researching) this. Maybe I should keep reading the Dao De Jing to see what else I find, or go with something more obvious. This is the hardest I've ever thought about a title and it's frustrating.