raspberryhunter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
raspberryhunter) wrote2013-05-16 08:05 am
raspberryhunter) wrote2013-05-16 08:05 am
Entry tags:
The Family Business: discussion (Greek Myth, gen, PG, SF, canon suicide)
I like nothing more than to natter on solipsistically about my own fics, and ollipop requested, so!
The Family Business is this Greek Myth SF-virtual-reality AU in which the Olympian gods are the executive management team for a large virtual-reality ("simspace") corporate entity. The story's about Minerva and her (and her family's) involvement in this simspace business, including a retelling of the Arachne story.
In canon, Athena sprang out of Zeus's head fully grown, and I can imagine that integration as an adult might have been a bit more fraught for her than for, say, Artemis, who apparently at three years of age was lecturing Zeus on what she wanted from him. Thus in the story, Minerva has an uneasy relationship with her family, especially her half-sister Diana; and there are a lot of things the Olympians do that she turns a blind eye to until she's forced by Arachne to face them.
Arachne manages to catch Minerva's attention, more-or-less, by being really good at manipulating the virtual reality, the equivalent of weaving in Ovid. Unlike Ovid, I imagined that Arachne was actually better than Minerva. I also departed from Ovid in giving Arachne a reason besides arrogance to want to tell the truth about the Olympians (she is best friends with Antiope, one of the women Jupiter wronged), and in giving Minerva a moment of facing that truth in the end, in a way that ultimately vindicated Arachne (though it wasn't the sort of story where Arachne could have a happy ending, alas -- maybe that's for another day).
When I sent this out to beta,seekingferret assumed that the theme was workmanship/artistry because of how I'd set up Minerva and Arachne as the competent workhorse and the transcendent artist, respectively, and heightened by the contrast between realspace and simspace (as art). I was surprised to get this reading back, because I'd assumed that the theme was Truth: simspace vs. realspace being a sort of murky reflection of illusion vs. truth -- murky, because although simspace is not reality, in the fic a lot of deception is happening in realspace that gets uncovered in simspace, and perhaps in general simspace may show you truths about yourself that maybe you didn't want to know. (You with whom I interact only through the interwebs: is this more true, or less, than interactions in RL? I'd say both.) Interestingly, the changes ferret suggested for amping up the dichotomy between simspace and realspace, between the transition to Arachne's spiderwebs, and the big moment at the end where Arachne's work goes out into the outside simulation -- these images are consistent with both readings (and I thought they were great suggestions, and I think they made the story a lot stronger).
sprocket, when I wrote her basically the above paragraph, told me that no, the theme was family (uh, maybe I should have been clued in by the title??); the setup is all interested in family (which, uh, explains why ferret told me there was too much setup; I had no idea the theme was family and told him it was about Arachne, and he pointed out that Arachne doesn't even show up until halfway through); the conflict through the entire fic is really about Minerva's conflicting thoughts about her family, and the cognitive dissonance that grows throughout the fic; and the breaking point for Minerva is actually a scene between Minerva and Diana that talks about family! The fic is about workmanship vs. artistry, and it's about truth -- ferret and I weren't wrong-- but those are just to service the examination of family, what it means to be part of a professional undertaking that's also a family undertaking, what kind of relationship you have with your half-sister who might love you and might be competing with you and really you're always a little off-balance about it, what you do when you find your family is not who you wanted them to be. (If I'd had, oh, several more weeks -- I was really working down to the wire here, and many MANY thanks to both ferret and sprocket for being willing to do this on such short time notice -- I might have pulled out all of this more; as it is, I could see how it could be a little more developed.)
Added at the last minute, but which I think is a key line, is a bit where Arachne says that she and Antiope were as close as sisters, or closer. And indeed Arachne dares everything -- and loses everything -- for Antiope's sake, whereas Diana is not even willing to cut Minerva a break in one executive meeting (seriously, Diana, couldn't you have maybe aired some of this beforehand?). And that's the thing, right: when are you close to your sister, just because she's your family? When do you stop being close to your sister, just because she's your family? When do you go back to your sister even if you don't know whether you love her or hate her, because when all's said and done there are things that you share that no one else does? When is it that someone who's unrelated to you becomes closer to you than your own family?
(Disclaimer: My actual sister is awesome, and our relationship is nothing like Minerva's and Diana's. Though we've had ups and downs on occasion, and it's not past the realm of probability that I mined some of our conflicts and amped them up a thousand times :) )
ollipop requested, so!The Family Business is this Greek Myth SF-virtual-reality AU in which the Olympian gods are the executive management team for a large virtual-reality ("simspace") corporate entity. The story's about Minerva and her (and her family's) involvement in this simspace business, including a retelling of the Arachne story.
In canon, Athena sprang out of Zeus's head fully grown, and I can imagine that integration as an adult might have been a bit more fraught for her than for, say, Artemis, who apparently at three years of age was lecturing Zeus on what she wanted from him. Thus in the story, Minerva has an uneasy relationship with her family, especially her half-sister Diana; and there are a lot of things the Olympians do that she turns a blind eye to until she's forced by Arachne to face them.
Arachne manages to catch Minerva's attention, more-or-less, by being really good at manipulating the virtual reality, the equivalent of weaving in Ovid. Unlike Ovid, I imagined that Arachne was actually better than Minerva. I also departed from Ovid in giving Arachne a reason besides arrogance to want to tell the truth about the Olympians (she is best friends with Antiope, one of the women Jupiter wronged), and in giving Minerva a moment of facing that truth in the end, in a way that ultimately vindicated Arachne (though it wasn't the sort of story where Arachne could have a happy ending, alas -- maybe that's for another day).
When I sent this out to beta,
seekingferret assumed that the theme was workmanship/artistry because of how I'd set up Minerva and Arachne as the competent workhorse and the transcendent artist, respectively, and heightened by the contrast between realspace and simspace (as art). I was surprised to get this reading back, because I'd assumed that the theme was Truth: simspace vs. realspace being a sort of murky reflection of illusion vs. truth -- murky, because although simspace is not reality, in the fic a lot of deception is happening in realspace that gets uncovered in simspace, and perhaps in general simspace may show you truths about yourself that maybe you didn't want to know. (You with whom I interact only through the interwebs: is this more true, or less, than interactions in RL? I'd say both.) Interestingly, the changes ferret suggested for amping up the dichotomy between simspace and realspace, between the transition to Arachne's spiderwebs, and the big moment at the end where Arachne's work goes out into the outside simulation -- these images are consistent with both readings (and I thought they were great suggestions, and I think they made the story a lot stronger).sprocket, when I wrote her basically the above paragraph, told me that no, the theme was family (uh, maybe I should have been clued in by the title??); the setup is all interested in family (which, uh, explains why ferret told me there was too much setup; I had no idea the theme was family and told him it was about Arachne, and he pointed out that Arachne doesn't even show up until halfway through); the conflict through the entire fic is really about Minerva's conflicting thoughts about her family, and the cognitive dissonance that grows throughout the fic; and the breaking point for Minerva is actually a scene between Minerva and Diana that talks about family! The fic is about workmanship vs. artistry, and it's about truth -- ferret and I weren't wrong-- but those are just to service the examination of family, what it means to be part of a professional undertaking that's also a family undertaking, what kind of relationship you have with your half-sister who might love you and might be competing with you and really you're always a little off-balance about it, what you do when you find your family is not who you wanted them to be. (If I'd had, oh, several more weeks -- I was really working down to the wire here, and many MANY thanks to both ferret and sprocket for being willing to do this on such short time notice -- I might have pulled out all of this more; as it is, I could see how it could be a little more developed.)Added at the last minute, but which I think is a key line, is a bit where Arachne says that she and Antiope were as close as sisters, or closer. And indeed Arachne dares everything -- and loses everything -- for Antiope's sake, whereas Diana is not even willing to cut Minerva a break in one executive meeting (seriously, Diana, couldn't you have maybe aired some of this beforehand?). And that's the thing, right: when are you close to your sister, just because she's your family? When do you stop being close to your sister, just because she's your family? When do you go back to your sister even if you don't know whether you love her or hate her, because when all's said and done there are things that you share that no one else does? When is it that someone who's unrelated to you becomes closer to you than your own family?
(Disclaimer: My actual sister is awesome, and our relationship is nothing like Minerva's and Diana's. Though we've had ups and downs on occasion, and it's not past the realm of probability that I mined some of our conflicts and amped them up a thousand times :) )