Is it a name dropping...

[lilfluff]

...if your character never actually mentions the other character's name? Still in the opening of my nano, and have one character make an of hand reference to, "The Brushtail's pet digger," which as I think about it isn't really a nice way for him to refer to Lady Dorothea Bayard, AKA Aunt Dottie, archaeologist and family black sheep from jeriendhal's Terinu fanfic Spin Recovery. He needed to make reference to someone known for studying pre-subjugation history, and hey, what do you know there might not be anyone mentioned in canon so far (that I recall being mentioned) but Dottie fits the bill (and is probably eccentric enough to be known). Which yes, means what I'm working on is also a Terinu fanfic. Or at least set in the same universe, most likely it won't involve any of the major characters.

Although hopefully my characters will be able to avoid running into addiction and loss of limbs like happened in Spin Recovery. Which isn't to say that they'll manage to avoid the involvement of law enforcement. Then again a story without troubles isn't going to be a very interesting story. For someone is going to be a very naughty boy, forcing my main character to take care of things when she'd rather not be on scene at all. ("Troublesome commoners and their silly celebrations, should never have accepted that offer of shore leave to visit home. Could have been in training, or doing paperwork, or getting shot at by pirates instead of this.")

Now to try and actually write past the opening scene...

EDIT: Hurrah, I do believe I now have a title. "The Unquiet Past"

Comments

[l-the-fangirl.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I like "references that are not references" myself, and would probably appreciate the joke if I found it out. Extra layers of meaning for the fans are always good; needing to know a canon, not so much.

For ex: "Looked like the base in an over the top RTS, one where Tesla cannons and freeze rays were standard issue."

Do you see what I did thar? I love reading that and getting the joke.

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting...

Concerning your question I really do not know if it is or not...

...but I think I look forward to reading your story (somewhen in the future...)

mjkj

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

Ah, good old Tesla. I don't recall hearing of him working on any variety of freeze ray but he did work on directed energy weapons for a time from what I recall. Apparently in a hope that such weapons would make war to fearsome to contemplate. Although considering that that was also a goal of Dr. Gatling, among others, I doubt there is any weapon truly fearsome enough to meet that goal.

Haven't played any RTS games though, unless you count flash based tower defense games as part of the genre. Otherwise I might recognize the game. Instead Tesla cannons makes me think of Gear Krieg despite never actually having played that.

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

The earliest inspiration for the story was a question I posed at a time when the Terinu forum was up, that being whether there were any humans with Vulpine Prime as their home. That is, not merely visiting, even visiting long term as might an ambassador's family in a friendly country, but people whose families actually considered the planet their home. The question was probably prompted in part by Earth's apparent feeling that it's okay for non-humans to visit, "But this is our homeworld, not yours, so it had better only be a visit."

We know that there are colony worlds with mixed colonists from Pet's story A Matter of Honor, which apparently was mostly human with some vulpine (and Galen?). (I'm guessing though that they mostly kept separate, and quietly pondered the others gender insanity.)

So I came up with a theory of how it could have come to pass even if the post-subjugation Vulpine might have had a similar, "This is our world, settle any of the others but this is ours," view. Even had a few bare bones ideas for some stories, but those didn't go anywhere.

But here they became part of the background. Providing a reason for the characters to come together and a place for things to happen.

Another character got his start from Royce asking for suggestions of Vulpine family names, which it pointed out that many seem to be based on physical features. Thus the family named, Shaventail, not their original name. Some time pre-subjugation a family member swore an oath to see some goal carried out, and apparently needing to prove their seriousness about their audacious goal shaved their tail and swore to keep it that way until the goal was met. Only it was too big a goal to complete in her life, so the eldest children declared they would do the same.

Only one tiny problem. The oath to keep ones tail trimmed survived the arrival of the Varn. Just what the goal was however, that was one of the bits of history lost during the subjugation. Leaving a continual debate over whether the tradition should be maintained, although it's really only expected of the main branch of the family. So young Shaventail in the opening scene claims that, "If I didn't do it I would have to change back to the old family name, and even the Brushtail's pet digger doesn't know what that used to be." Which honestly is an exaggeration.

He's not, however, the main character. I just decided that I had to make use of the idea so I used it for that character.

And even if I did finally reach page three, I suppose I should get back to the word processor window...

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

1. I am vastly amused/proud that one of my characters is getting a ref (however obliquely) in your fic.

2. Thanks for remembering what Rufus' father's (and Aunt Dottie's) "maiden" name was. I never saved the IM conversation where Peta mentioned it to me. That and I managed to get through all of Spin Recovery referring to Rufus' mother as "Mother" or "Countess Brushtail" for pretty much the same reason.

3. Can't wait to read this!

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

Hey, Aunt Dottie is a fun character. Needs her own story in which we get to see her and her slaves students at work digging up history.

I will however have to scold Jagen at some point for being so rude in mentioning a great scholar.

I'm still debating whether to wait until it's finished (or at least complete out the month), or to start posting.

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

I see you have put much thought into that one :)

The way how I see it is: I see Vulpine Prime as the main Vulpine Planet because it is their planet of origin and as you stated I truly believe that they hardly would accept any other race there — but I also know how humans are ... if they want to be in a place (even if it is quite hostile) they adapt and be there ... so I would say it is quite probable that there are single humans, human families or even a small human community/settlement/colony on Vulpine Prime.

As you already saw Peta has put up her nano-story and on this planet there are also many of the races but with human majority and hardly interacting with each others (if I had read that correctly)

enjoy writing your story :)

mjkj

[l-the-fangirl.livejournal.com]

They are Not A Refs to Command and Conquer: Red Alert.

Russian units in that game have a lot of electrical attacks based on Tesla coils; the American-European Alliance has freeze rays and time travel.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Forgot to mention that now it's (semi) canon that Tez is in the universe, I've been piddling with the idea of seeing how Rachael is getting on. I imagine her running into Tez while she's living as a student at Brushtail manor. It'd be only natural that she'd run into Dottie too. :)