Date: 06 Aug 2013 22:16 Title: Chapter 1
Ah, the classic cultural misunderstanding angle. But I do love the twist with the child and the mistakenly presumed broken toys. At first I was thinking maybe the kid had been given Legos or Lincoln Logs but the puzzle is even better.
I also enjoyed the positive, feel good vibe of the tale, with a society which for a change actually wants to be friends with humans and Starfleet. I appreciate that a good story is about conflict but from time to time, it's nice to read a pure feel-good tale.
Made me smile. Great stuff.
Author's Response:
Aw, thanks! I do so love the puppy people. They have enough conflict-heavy tales, so a bit of fluff. :)
Date: 21 Dec 2011 05:54 Title: Chapter 1
At first I thought it were building blocks, but puzzles seem as "broken" ;)
An adorable story.
It's good to see that all family members do everything together and there's no separation to who is allowed what.
Author's Response:
Thanks!
I wanted it to be a subtle indication that things are changing a bit, and that they can find solutions (even to very small problems) better and faster when they work together.
Date: 20 Dec 2011 18:21 Title: Chapter 1
I would never have thought a jigsaw puzzle could cause such confusion, either, but at least it ended up creating some fun for the entire family!
I could absolutely believe the frustration bringing a child that age to tears. I'm sure that's how I would've reacted!
I'm a little surprised the instructions on the box weren't translated, though--or did they come in some kind of custom packaging that the ENT crew got for them? I would have thought they'd get Hoshi to translate any written instructions that might have been provided.
As a cultural note...it's strange that Trinning doesn't call his mother by the honorific of "Mother," or even "Mom." But I guess that's because women still aren't seen by most of society as deserving that kind of respect.
Elemus surprised me here--actually using the puzzle as a photo op. I'm not sure whether he did it for political purposes only, or whether he actually thought this was interesting.
You write such cute, wonderful "family" scenes. I hope we'll get to see more!
Just one more question about the Daranaean pictographs. Was there ever a deliberate simplification of the language to ensure that all pictographs at least somewhat resembled what they depicted? Considering how Chinese characters changed over time into things that barely look like what they belong to, I was wondering. The Daranaean characters remind me more of Egyptian hieroglyphs, or even the earliest versions I've seen of Hebrew letters, before they took on the more stylized appearance we're familiar with today. (This would be their Proto-Sinaitic or even Phoenecian forms.)
Author's Response:
Thank you so much for reviewing! :)
I wanted it to be something that we would take for granted (hence no special instructions) but they would just scratch their furry heads and say, "Huh?" Picture dogs tilting their heads.
Seppa - a little meltdown for our girl. And it's not too long after her mother died. She has to lean on a lot of people who aren't her full blood relatives, and she's only very little so it's tough to navigate that. Plus she (and Minna) can't really read that well yet. How else do you react to frustrations when you're that small? Plus I think she may have thought that the last time the humans were there, her mother died but she was allowed to join in with the home schooling. It's bittersweet for her. And now she's scared that she'll be blamed for something going wrong.
For Trinning, a part of it is that he's older. But I'm also glad that you picked up on that. Language is always key in these stories. How people treat each other is reflected in what they call each other, or what they refer to each other as. Daranaea is still very much a Man's World.
Elemus - it pays for him to show how he can get into the spirit of human relations. We just got him appointed to be Provisional Alpha. It's a bit of political hay for him. Plus it's the ever-present overly intrusive press.
Thank you - I love the Daranaeans so I love to write about their home lives. You'll see them again. ;)
As for the pictographs - I have definitely had Egyptian hieroglyphics in mind, plus a bit of Hebrew although Hebrew is more stylized. Plus I wanted some names that we might listen to and think they mean one thing, but it turns out that they mean another thing entirely. Hence Seppa, which sounds to our ears like "separate" actually means "sunny", a far more positive thing. These days I doodle in Daranaean pictographs.