When I am With You

A forum for discussing fan fiction related to Let The Right One In
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EEA
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Re: When I am With You

Post by EEA » Tue Mar 25, 2014 1:42 am

Nice. The song fits well in describing Eli and Oskar's relationship. :)

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dongregg
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Re: When I am With You

Post by dongregg » Mon Jun 09, 2014 12:58 am

Well, boys and girls, I have given a lot of thought to the gender issue in the film. So I first decided to refer to Eli only as a boy in the story.
Last edited by dongregg on Sun Aug 10, 2014 1:43 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: When I am With You

Post by dongregg » Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:35 am

Okay, I accepted my own challenge and turned Eli into Elias for all 10 pages of "When I Am with You." The first problem was that I didn't want to use a name for Eli/Elias until he spoke his name to Oskar. Likewise, I wanted Oskar to be "the boy," not "Oskar," until he spoke his name. Why? Because "When I Am With You" is what Eli sees, thinks, and feels. She doesn't think much about who or what she is until Oskar begins to awaken vestiges of her humanity and her childhood. And she doesn't know Oskar's name until he says it.

The dynamic that is important to Eli/Elias is how to be a human, not how to be either a boy or a girl. What she feels for Oskar is completely innocent, and she is learning how to fit into Oskar's world. Boys give girls candy. "Okay, I'll try it." Oskar tells Elias to take one of his mother's dresses. "Sure, why not?" And consciously or not, her cute blouse and bellbottoms are very feminine-looking when she rings Oskar's doorbell. The progressive feminization of Eli is not central to the tale. The humanization of Eli is.

Since the story is almost 100% (okay, 99%) from the film, then what you see is what you get. I got excited shaping the story to be about two boys who fall in love, but it is not the same film. It becomes a "boys' story" instead of the story of Oskar having to overcome Elias' confusing lack of gender along with the fact that Elias is a very old 12-year-old vampire who kills people in order to live.

So don't look for my all-male review to show up in Fan Fiction. I did the work, I enjoyed it, but the story doesn't fly with Eli as a boy. She has to be a vampire, one who was a boy centuries before but who is now genderless and trying to reclaim his/her/its humanity.
Last edited by dongregg on Sun Aug 10, 2014 1:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
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dom-on-ho
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Re: When I am With You

Post by dom-on-ho » Wed Jul 16, 2014 7:40 pm

I have been thinking about the gender issue since I started writing so I just decided to go with calling Eli a female and Oskar being male since the english language doesn't have a decent neutral gender term and, to me locking the two of them into a single gender doesn't work. Children don't have a gender mind set until it is pressed on them by their parents, siblings and society. Eli has lived over 200 years without a set gender, a neuter for want of a better term and Oskar doesn't seem to care about Eli's gender,so it appears to me that OSkar will have a neutral mind set also.
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metoo
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Re: When I am With You

Post by metoo » Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:34 pm

dom-on-ho wrote:Children don't have a gender mind set until it is pressed on them by their parents, siblings and society.
This is probably not altogether true. It's bedtime for me, so I haven't got time to find good references. However, this blog discusses the subject: http://psue8d.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/ ... or-learnt/

Here is another link: http://sites.psu.edu/evolutionofhumanse ... s-nurture/
But from the beginning Eli was just Eli. Nothing. Anything. And he is still a mystery to me. John Ajvide Lindqvist

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Re: When I am With You

Post by dom-on-ho » Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:05 pm

metoo wrote:
dom-on-ho wrote:Children don't have a gender mind set until it is pressed on them by their parents, siblings and society.
This is probably not altogether true. It's bedtime for me, so I haven't got the time to find good references. However, this blog discusses the subject: http://psue8d.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/ ... or-learnt/
I think I messed up what I was trying to say, if a child isnt forced into a sexual/gender mindset no matter what sexual organs they have, then they would be gender neutral, they wouldn't care what gender people are, they would only care about the person, the personality.
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Re: When I am With You

Post by dongregg » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:09 pm

dom-on-ho wrote:Children don't have a gender mind set until it is pressed on them by their parents, siblings and society.
What metoo's article says: http://sites.psu.edu/evolutionofhumanse ... vs-nurture

Sexual orientation is determined before birth. That doesn't mean that environment doesn't affect how the orientation is expressed in society, just how it is perceived by the person. It also allows for the infant's sexual orientation to occur along a spectrum from female to male. And this is regardless of whether their equipment is intact. Plenty of females feel male and vice-versa. As I understand it, this is what makes people decide to have surgical and hormone intervention so they can be more comfortable with being the gender they feel they really are.

I would like to know how you perceive the way I handled gender in "When I Am With You." It's part of the film that can't be ignored, and I didn't ignore it, but... well, just let me know, please.
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Re: When I am With You

Post by dom-on-ho » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:40 pm

dongregg wrote:
dom-on-ho wrote:Children don't have a gender mind set until it is pressed on them by their parents, siblings and society.
What metoo's article says: http://sites.psu.edu/evolutionofhumanse ... vs-nurture

Sexual orientation is determined before birth. That doesn't mean that environment doesn't affect how the orientation is expressed in society, just how it is perceived by the person. It also allows for the infant's sexual orientation to occur along a spectrum from female to male. And this is regardless of whether their equipment is intact. Plenty of females feel male and vice-versa. As I understand it, this is what makes people decide to have surgical and hormone intervention so they can be more comfortable with being the gender they feel they really are.

I would like to know how you perceive the way I handled gender in "When I Am With You." It's part of the film that can't be ignored, and I didn't ignore it, but... well, just let me know, please.
I like your story but like me you write about Eli as a female, my own are the same way, I represent Eli as female and after reading this thread I realize I am doing it wrong, Eli may appear female, " to pretty to be a boy " and may act like a girl most of the time but he is gender neutral in the book and repeatedly tells Oskar he isn't a girl , I need to change the way I write about Eli, represent him/her as more neutral, sadly the english language does not have a gender neutral pronoun and I refuse to use the term " it " when refering to Eli so I am not sure what I will do. Any suggestions ?
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dongregg
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Re: When I am With You

Post by dongregg » Wed Jul 16, 2014 11:35 pm

dom-on-ho wrote:I like your story but like me you write about Eli as a female, my own are the same way, I represent Eli as female and after reading this thread I realize I am doing it wrong, Eli may appear female, " too pretty to be a boy " and may act like a girl most of the time but he is gender neutral in the book and repeatedly tells Oskar he isn't a girl , I need to change the way I write about Eli, represent him/her as more neutral, sadly the English language does not have a gender neutral pronoun and I refuse to use the term " it " when refering to Eli so I am not sure what I will do. Any suggestions ?
I think TA and JAL have between them created an insoluble issue. I dealt with it by going with "she" and using a kind of glancing blow about what Eli is. PeteMork and some others go with she; others with "he." It's just hard to write the gender issue out of the story, but stressing it too much doesn't fit in with the story either. I think each fan fiction writer just has to find a good way to deal with it (or not deal with it). It seems that those oriented toward the book favor "he" (not always), and those oriented toward the film favor "she" (also not always).

One thing--I don't think the gender neutral Swedish pronoun helped that much because the Swedish members of the forum have to deal with the gender issue just as we non-Swedes do. About pronouns--use nouns whenever possible. You'll thank me later.
Last edited by dongregg on Thu Jul 17, 2014 12:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: When I am With You

Post by dom-on-ho » Wed Jul 16, 2014 11:59 pm

dongregg: I have read your story quite a few times and the way you represent Eli is excellent, it allows the reader to differentiate between Eli and Oskar easily without having a lot of Eli this and Oskar that, pronouns help a story move smoother, I guess anyone who reads the fanfics knows everything about Eli and Oskar and will know that. From what I Understand, Swedish does have gender neutral pronouns.
Flashing lights and screaming siren
Scrambling for heartbeat
Straining for a breath
Looking for recognition in the eye
Staving off the Reaper one at a time

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