Yuletide meme
Dec. 17th, 2012 12:51 pmStolen from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
petra: reflections on Yuletide past.
I don't have that much to reflect, seeing as I only participated these last three years, though I've eagerly read far longer than that. :)
2009: Spinning Fate
Arachne strikes back at the Gods
I had signed up for a lot of fandoms and mythology - specifically Ovid's Metamorphoses - was a last minute "oh, why not, I love myths and Ovid!" addition. Wouldn't you know it, Ovid is what I got. For a minute or so, I wondered about tackling one of the lesser known metamorphoses - the change Ovid concludes his book with, which is Julius Caesar after his assassination - but then thought, no. Because ever since I read the somewhat bowlderized but still captivating versions of the Greek myths by Gustav Schwab at age 9, I'd been haunted by the fate of Arachne, ending up as a spider for having the nerve to challenge a goddess not via murder a la Tantalus or with another crime but simply with her superior weaving skills, and even more so after we read Ovid in school and I discovered that while Schwab had Athena win the competition and Arachne trying to hang herself in shame, Ovid had Arachne win, Athena/Minerva destroy Arachne's work in fury and Arachne hang herself in fury at the injustice of it all. Both versions of course end with Athena having a last minute attack of compassion and changing the dangling but still living Arachne into a spider. So the idea to write a follow up in which Arachne gets her revenge was irresistable, all the more so because I had an idea of how she could do that which would fit with the quintessential Ovidian theme of change. Drafting those other challengers of the gods, Prometheus and Niobe, into the story followed almost naturally. And I was absolutely delighted to find out some spiders do indeed travel by wind.
2010: Let It Be
Losing Jadzia, finding Ezri, being Dax: Worf, Ezri, Quark and Julian Bashir. Grief and the connections that endure.
This was the first year in which Star Trek: DS9 was accepted as a Yuletide fandom, so course I put it on my list of fandoms I could write. Back in my DS9 writing days, I had mostly focused on Cardassians, Ferengi and Jadzia Dax, with some Jake Sisko thrown in, so the request which asked specifically for Worf, Ezri, Julian and the fallout of Jadzia's death meant a challenge in the good way - focusing on characters I hadn't written before. Worf had a cameo in one of my previous DS9 stories, but no more than that; I'd never written Ezri at all, though an earlier story about Curzon turned out to be good practice for writing a Dax who isn't Jadzia. This turned out to be more a loosely connected series of vignettes than a story, but "characters dealing with grief and identity" is catnip to me. I had thought Worf would be troublesome to write, but as it turned out, not all, and it was a good opportunity to bring in some of his TNG backstory. And I couldn't resist bringing in Quark, who hadn't been requested at all but insisted he had to be there, and so he was, getting as much page time as Julian. But really, it was necessary, I swear! Ezri and Julian both needed someone to talk to!
2011: Collaborators
Investigating Ferengi, getting blackmailed by the Bajoran resistance, and working for Cardassians: how Odo's assignment to investigate a murder on Terok Nor became a permanent job. Naturally, it was all Quark's fault.
I was matched for DS9 in the second year in a row. (Which is why I didn't sign up for it this year; much as I love my space stations, I wanted another fandom challenge, and I got one.) One of the prompts given called for Quark and Odo, at which point I realised that as often as I had written Quark, I had never written Odo from his own pov (except for a drabble eons ago, and that was Alternate Odo from Children of Time). Self, thought I, it's time for some serious Odo character exploration. Also the use of a plot hole, which was: given that in the second season flashback episode Necessary Evil, which shows how Odo got drafted to solve a mysterious death by Dukat during the Occupation, had Odo NOT solving said murder in the past (though he does in the show present), we didn't know what made Dukat keep Odo as Constable. (Or why Odo chose to take the job once the immediate cause was over.) So I wrote my first lengthy Odo piece, with the added bonus that it also detailed the start of his relationship with Quark.... and not one of the Odo fans on my flist commented on it. I'm still somewhat crushed, I tell you. :( I did get some nice feedback from the general DS9 and Quark fans, though.
petra: reflections on Yuletide past. I don't have that much to reflect, seeing as I only participated these last three years, though I've eagerly read far longer than that. :)
2009: Spinning Fate
Arachne strikes back at the Gods
I had signed up for a lot of fandoms and mythology - specifically Ovid's Metamorphoses - was a last minute "oh, why not, I love myths and Ovid!" addition. Wouldn't you know it, Ovid is what I got. For a minute or so, I wondered about tackling one of the lesser known metamorphoses - the change Ovid concludes his book with, which is Julius Caesar after his assassination - but then thought, no. Because ever since I read the somewhat bowlderized but still captivating versions of the Greek myths by Gustav Schwab at age 9, I'd been haunted by the fate of Arachne, ending up as a spider for having the nerve to challenge a goddess not via murder a la Tantalus or with another crime but simply with her superior weaving skills, and even more so after we read Ovid in school and I discovered that while Schwab had Athena win the competition and Arachne trying to hang herself in shame, Ovid had Arachne win, Athena/Minerva destroy Arachne's work in fury and Arachne hang herself in fury at the injustice of it all. Both versions of course end with Athena having a last minute attack of compassion and changing the dangling but still living Arachne into a spider. So the idea to write a follow up in which Arachne gets her revenge was irresistable, all the more so because I had an idea of how she could do that which would fit with the quintessential Ovidian theme of change. Drafting those other challengers of the gods, Prometheus and Niobe, into the story followed almost naturally. And I was absolutely delighted to find out some spiders do indeed travel by wind.
2010: Let It Be
Losing Jadzia, finding Ezri, being Dax: Worf, Ezri, Quark and Julian Bashir. Grief and the connections that endure.
This was the first year in which Star Trek: DS9 was accepted as a Yuletide fandom, so course I put it on my list of fandoms I could write. Back in my DS9 writing days, I had mostly focused on Cardassians, Ferengi and Jadzia Dax, with some Jake Sisko thrown in, so the request which asked specifically for Worf, Ezri, Julian and the fallout of Jadzia's death meant a challenge in the good way - focusing on characters I hadn't written before. Worf had a cameo in one of my previous DS9 stories, but no more than that; I'd never written Ezri at all, though an earlier story about Curzon turned out to be good practice for writing a Dax who isn't Jadzia. This turned out to be more a loosely connected series of vignettes than a story, but "characters dealing with grief and identity" is catnip to me. I had thought Worf would be troublesome to write, but as it turned out, not all, and it was a good opportunity to bring in some of his TNG backstory. And I couldn't resist bringing in Quark, who hadn't been requested at all but insisted he had to be there, and so he was, getting as much page time as Julian. But really, it was necessary, I swear! Ezri and Julian both needed someone to talk to!
2011: Collaborators
Investigating Ferengi, getting blackmailed by the Bajoran resistance, and working for Cardassians: how Odo's assignment to investigate a murder on Terok Nor became a permanent job. Naturally, it was all Quark's fault.
I was matched for DS9 in the second year in a row. (Which is why I didn't sign up for it this year; much as I love my space stations, I wanted another fandom challenge, and I got one.) One of the prompts given called for Quark and Odo, at which point I realised that as often as I had written Quark, I had never written Odo from his own pov (except for a drabble eons ago, and that was Alternate Odo from Children of Time). Self, thought I, it's time for some serious Odo character exploration. Also the use of a plot hole, which was: given that in the second season flashback episode Necessary Evil, which shows how Odo got drafted to solve a mysterious death by Dukat during the Occupation, had Odo NOT solving said murder in the past (though he does in the show present), we didn't know what made Dukat keep Odo as Constable. (Or why Odo chose to take the job once the immediate cause was over.) So I wrote my first lengthy Odo piece, with the added bonus that it also detailed the start of his relationship with Quark.... and not one of the Odo fans on my flist commented on it. I'm still somewhat crushed, I tell you. :( I did get some nice feedback from the general DS9 and Quark fans, though.
