FIC: Polysemy
Jan. 1st, 2013 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupPolysemy (3071 words) by Snickfic
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Railsea - China Mieville, MIEVILLE China - Works
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abacat Naphi/OFC
Characters: Abacat Naphi
Summary:
Finally, after years of wanting to write Miveille fic, this year I did: a treatfic about Captain Naphi from Mieville's newest, Railsea. Naphi is the (female) Captain Ahab figure in a novel that in the end does not look very much like Moby Dick. She's rather an enigma, in terms of motivation, and she is fabulous.
I ended up working in my fascination for the novel's concept of a "philosophy": a driving force, a motivating principle embodied by some particular, huge animal that one is trying to kill. In Naphi's case, it's the gargantuan pale mole Mocker-Jack, Mole of Many Meanings. This is not, it seems to me, so very much unlike the Church of God Kraken's worship in Kraken (another Mieville novel which I otherwise mostly disliked). It's got that same idea of attaching personal metaphysical significance to elements of nature.
The fic's also notable for being my first honest-to-goodness femslash, of Naphi/OFC, although the basic thrust of the fic is more character study than romance. (I notice that I tend to be very lady-centric for Yuletide; all of them have at least one significant woman, even if I had to invent her myself - I also tend to invent OCs for Yuletide - and most have no male characters at all.)
Original entry posted at Dreamwidth. Feel free to reply here or there. (
DW replies)
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Railsea - China Mieville, MIEVILLE China - Works
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abacat Naphi/OFC
Characters: Abacat Naphi
Summary:
She stands on deck, weight shifting as natural as breathing with each nickitut nickitut of wheels on rails, & she shields her eyes with her hand – her natural one, made of meat not metal – & you ask, out of what stock does one begin to whittle Abacat Naphi?
---Finally, after years of wanting to write Miveille fic, this year I did: a treatfic about Captain Naphi from Mieville's newest, Railsea. Naphi is the (female) Captain Ahab figure in a novel that in the end does not look very much like Moby Dick. She's rather an enigma, in terms of motivation, and she is fabulous.
I ended up working in my fascination for the novel's concept of a "philosophy": a driving force, a motivating principle embodied by some particular, huge animal that one is trying to kill. In Naphi's case, it's the gargantuan pale mole Mocker-Jack, Mole of Many Meanings. This is not, it seems to me, so very much unlike the Church of God Kraken's worship in Kraken (another Mieville novel which I otherwise mostly disliked). It's got that same idea of attaching personal metaphysical significance to elements of nature.
The fic's also notable for being my first honest-to-goodness femslash, of Naphi/OFC, although the basic thrust of the fic is more character study than romance. (I notice that I tend to be very lady-centric for Yuletide; all of them have at least one significant woman, even if I had to invent her myself - I also tend to invent OCs for Yuletide - and most have no male characters at all.)
Original entry posted at Dreamwidth. Feel free to reply here or there. (
