Comments | where_no_woman: How it begins: The new year drabblefest

anodyna in where_no_woman

How it begins: The new year drabblefest

Jan 04, 2010 08:40

Hi! For the first drabblefest of the new year, I chose the theme "how it begins." These prompts are the first lines of novels, poems, and essays. Some are famous, and some are obscure things I found and thought, ooh, prompty ( Read more... )

character: jocelyn, character: madeline, character: number one, character: winona, character: amanda, character: kasidy, character: chapel, canon: aos, character: hannity, challenge: drabblefest, character: ziyal, character: naara, character: t'pring, character: kira, character: gaila, character: ofc, canon: tos, character: uhura, character: the companion, character: rand, canon: ent

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20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) florahart January 4 2010, 21:42:35 UTC

She shrugs, unwilling to answer the question but also well aware that actually refusing to answer only makes people more curious. "She died young," she says. "When I was a baby, that I might live ( ... )

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) danahid January 4 2010, 21:56:13 UTC

Fascinating possible first meeting between Gaila and Jim. I especially like the rhythms of Gaila's thinking, details like this She arches a brow, supposing that it would explain why such an odd question was even asked. "Is that a convenient lie to establish a connection, or is it true?" and this: she glances at the identi-card again. It's not fake, as far as she can tell, and it's not like she's not familiar with a number of likely tricks. She grew up among traders, and the black market is full of altered manifests and manufactured identity and this "Is that a convenient lie to establish a connection, or is it true?"

Lovely, thought-provoking work!

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) florahart January 5 2010, 06:14:56 UTC

Thanks! :)

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) anodyna January 4 2010, 22:28:40 UTC

This was really lovely! I adore the back-and-forth bantering between Gaila and Jim, and how much more is going on in Gaila's mind than she lets on. You really get to how intelligent she is, how perceptive about others and their motives.

I especially liked this paragraph because I think it really captures the discrepancy between Kirk's perception and Gaila's:

"Yeah?" The cadet's eyes are socially-appropriate, but oddly interested, like she's said something that gives him access to her secrets. Which she hasn't; it's true that her mother died when she was a baby, but that much is, technically, public record. The story, in which her mother sent her with others to safety and stayed behind as a distraction (there's more to it than that; that's the summary), is not one she tells to near-strangers in bars because they're playing a game of questions which is, nominally, truth or dare, but which so far is entirely questions on both sides.

Thanks for sharing this--I really enjoyed reading it!

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) florahart January 5 2010, 06:16:18 UTC

Thanks. :)

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) merisunshine36 January 4 2010, 22:29:00 UTC

I love how you kept this story squarely focused on Gaila by omitting all Kirk idenfitiers, and how it blows the "no one can resist that Kirk sex magic" stereotype out of the water. I actually had to read it twice to figure out that she was talking to him, and not just some random lieutenant who also died that day (slow I am slow).

"Is that a convenient lie to establish a connection, or is it true?"
totally filing this away in my anti-pickup line arsenal.

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) florahart January 5 2010, 06:17:06 UTC

Heh, yeah, I had to be deliberate in not letting him take over (he tends to try, heh). Glad you liked it.

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) tosca1390 January 4 2010, 23:31:37 UTC

This was just great, great. I love your Gaila, and how she counters Jim.

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) florahart January 5 2010, 06:17:33 UTC

Thanks! :)

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) igrockspock January 5 2010, 02:23:50 UTC

This is a fascinating portrait of both of them - Jim trying to establish a connection, Gaila so weary and wary by the years before she came here.

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) florahart January 5 2010, 06:19:27 UTC

Thanks. I was wanting to talk about how they met, since I don't like the notion they JUST met before the Kobayashi Maru thing, you know? (I choose to IGNORE the cut scene with the other green girl that makes him look like such a total, total ass)

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) rubynye January 5 2010, 03:57:31 UTC

Oh, I really like this. I love Gaila's intelligent wariness.

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) florahart January 5 2010, 06:19:47 UTC

Thanks! :)

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) jncar January 5 2010, 04:51:50 UTC

I really enjoyed this.

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) florahart January 5 2010, 06:20:19 UTC

Thank you. :)

Re: 20. What can you say about a 25 year old girl who died? (Gaila) forthisreason January 5 2010, 05:36:57 UTC

I don't have too much to say because I'm floored by the choppy style you wrote this in. It fits beautifully.

But I love your Gaila and I love that your Jim isn't just trying to get into her pants...he wants her to believe that he really is telling her the truth and he wants to know her truth as well.

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