Fanfiction

Oct

2014

Review – A Perfect Note

What is a perfect note?

Background

In response to a Star Trek fan fiction prompt about “the dying of the light”, I decided to create a story where that line would be the first line of a Shakespearean sonnet. I hadn’t written a sonnet in a while, so this proved to be an opportunity to brush up and improve this skill. This was also a chance to write an IDIC story. Hence at least one character would be LGBTQ, if not several.

Plot

A Perfect Note

As Lili cleans up after dinner one night during the Xindi War, Lucas Donnelly sits at a table in the mess, trying to write a perfect note to his object of desire, Dave Constantine.

As this is going on, Ethan is talking about asking Karin to Movie Night, where Chip will be showing Night of the Living Dead, as it’s almost Halloween.

When the ship is attacked, the two men take their posts at the torpedo station, to make sure that the equipment is working perfectly. This station (in canon) is also close to the weapons locker. Ethan and Luke are crewmen, and they will be handing out the weapons if the Enterprise is boarded.

But it can be a little dull. As they stand, minds wander. And so Ethan tells Luke that Dave is going to Movie Night with Preston.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

The little story seems to hold up over the years, and I particularly like how the sonnet turned out.

Before the dying of the light
All I wish is to hold you near
You would be such a wond’rous sight
Allow me to whisper in your ear

Within the vastness of deep space
Anyone can feel so small
Yet I just want to see your face
Well, I admit, that isn’t all

So far apart, and yet nearly beside
But still intrudes this nasty war
A kiss could start a wild ride
And isn’t that what starlight’s for?

Yet after all this contemplation
It’s just a no-win situation

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Sep

2014

Progress Report – September 2014

September 2014 was a time of preparations.

Posted Works

I began the month in Star Trek fan fiction by adding to The Three of Us on Fanfiction.net and The Social Media Guide on Wattpad.

On the G & T Show forums, I finished the Daranaean Emergence series by posting Confidence. I then started posting the Eriecho series, with Release, Beats, The Mundane World, A Gathering, Double Helix and began to spin out Recessive.

On Wattpad, I continued adding the the Before Days series with Waiting; If You Can’t Stand the Heat; More, More, More!, and Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses.

Postmodern Jukebox

Because I’m a silly fan girl, I also got permission from Scott Bradlee and started to post the first-ever (far as anyone can tell) popfic about singing group Postmodern Jukebox! It’s called The Canadian Caper.

On Ad Astra, I responded to the “on my word” challenge with Promise, a Travis–Julie story. In response to a prompt about school, I added a short Inta-centric story, Education.

I added Where No Gerbil Has Gone Before to the Delphic Expanse after some minor tweaking by the beta reader.

Milestones

On combined URLs, over 100 stories have 1,000 or more reads, and over 25 stories have 5,000 or more reads. 15 stories have over 9,750 reads on combined URLs. Twelve individual story URLs have over 10,000 reads. Over 30 have over 50 reviews on combined URLs. Six have over 100 reads (half of those are on individual URLs). See the Stats page for individual read and review counts for Star Trek fan fiction and other works.

The Fanfic profile on Wattpad added three of my stories to their Star Trek reading list: The New Captain’s Woman (a combination of That’s Not My Name and It Had to be You), Biases, and Before Days (the prequels in the In Between Days series).

WIP Corner

I continued to work on The Polymer Beat, the second book in the wholly original Obolonk series.

Prep Work

Also, I added a little to the Star Trek fan fiction wiki but didn’t really have time to go in depth.

This Month’s Productivity Killers

Class at Quinnipiac (I’m going to start taking 2 classes at a time next semester), and managing The G & T Show’s many social media accounts took up a great deal of my time. The show was also in the midst of a GoFundMe fundraiser.

Plus we went on a short vacation to Cape Cod in the middle of the month.

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Sep

2014

Portrait of a Character – Wesley Crusher

Wesley Crusher divides the fandom, or so it seems.

Origins

This character is, of course, canon to The Next Generation.

Wesley Crusher

A lot of Star Trek fans dislike this character intensely, and see him as a male Mary Sue. I agree that the writing for this character was not the best.

But that’s what Star Trek fanfiction is for.

Portrayal

As in canon, Wesley is portrayed by actor Wil Wheaton. There is no one else, so far as I’m concerned, who can possibly play this character.

Personality

Shy and nervous, but smarter than everyone else in the room, Wesley has to learn to rein in his intelligence a bit. However, it’s not that he needs to dumb things down. Rather, it’s more that he’s just not getting a lot of social capital for always being the first one with the right answer. Hence he needs to step back and give others a chance, even though he knows that he can do better most of the time.

Relationships

Robin Lefler

This canon relationship is briefly referred to in Imprecision, when The Traveler asks about an earlier dream. Wesley admits he was dreaming about having sex with Robin, and that he sometimes regretted that not having happened in real life.

Lakeisha Warren

When Wes meets Lakeisha, it’s pretty close to love at first sight.

She’s playing the French horn in the Starfleet Academy band, which has been asked to play at Will Riker and Deanna Troi’s wedding.

But all Wes can think of, all he can see and hear, is the lovely dark-skinned girl with the dark brown eyes.

Yes, Lakeisha and Wes aren’t the same race.

They marry, and are together for the remainder of their lives. As an old grandfather, Wes talks about her in Crackerjack.

Mirror Universe

There are, so far as I am aware, no impediments to Wesley existing in the Mirror. Frankly, I’m surprised that no one seems to have explored this scenario in Star Trek official fiction and fan fiction has barely explored the idea.

I like the idea of him being less obsessed with duty, and see him as being a lot like, well, like Wil Wheaton himself has become. E. g. a guy who does some acting but is also a force for good in the geek world. Maybe a Mirror Wesley could be the kind of positive force for good that is lacking in that universe.

The idea intrigues, and I may look into it at some time.

Quote

“Are you telling me you wanna leave the Enterprise and all of that and just stay here? Is that it? Because if it is, well, do me a favor and help me get the Monongahela working again. I’ll leave you here, if that’s what you really want, and I’ll take my chances out there with that, that infrared pulse! And I’ll tell Captain Picard and the others that we got caught by an infrared pulse and you lost your freakin’ mind!”

Upshot

I like redeeming Wesley, and maybe, in some small way, I have. I’m not sure. If I can get on a roll again with the Barnstorming series, he’ll be seen again, with Lakeisha, as he embraces young adulthood, love, and the world of work, like many young people do.

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Aug

2014

Progress Report – August 2014

August 2014 was productive.

Posted Works

I began the month in Star Trek fan fiction by continuing to add to, and then finishing, Entanglements on Fanfiction.net. And I then began to spin out The Three of Us there. Because these two stories were completed, Reflections Down a Corridor and Entanglements were imported into Fictionpad.

Also, I continued posting Flight of the Bluebird on the G and T Show Forums.

In addition, on Wattpad, I added Onions, Penicillin, Demotion, Letters from Home and Bribery to Before Days. To join a fanfiction drabble contest, I entered Worry.

I began the new round robin story on Ad Astra by posting Multiverse Mini. Like pretty much all of the round robins on the site, the storyline moves slowly and it might never be completed. I also contributed to The All-Stars. In response to a prompt about a worst nightmare, I wrote a story about Kevin Madden-Beckett, About Nine Months.

Milestones

My numbers continued to climb. There are currently 18 works with 50 or more reviews. Four of those have 100 or more reviews. There are over 100 stories with at least 1,000 reads. See the Stats page for individual read and review counts.

WIP Corner

I continued contributing to the wholly original story, The Polymer Beat, which is the first sequel to The Obolonk Murders. I worked on Time Out, which is the third story in the Barnstorming series.

Prep Work

I spent some time requesting a photomanipulation for my Klingons of Long Island character, Lukara of Hewlett, from the STPMA. That is all just a bit of silliness for the G and T Show.

This Month’s Productivity Killers

I began working as the Social Media Director of the G and T Show. My final project for Quinnipiac University was due during the first week of the month. I then began another class on the 25th, Theories of Communication.

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Aug

2014

Review – Spring Thaw

Spring Thaw

A Spring Thaw is unpredictable and can often feel like one step forward, two steps back.

Background

Here is where, in Star Trek fanfiction, I wanted canon character Richard Daniels to tragically fall in love with a woman he could never have.

The story, however, was originally a part of a wholly original time travel series. In both versions, a time traveler is tasked with ending Prague Spring, because true historical figure Drahomír Kolder is being blackmailed. But in the original story, Milena Chelenska was the time traveler, and she married Elijah Kohak before departing, an act that breaks both of their hearts. But the altered story diverged quite a bit.

Plot

Prague Spring

Spring Thaw

In the story as it was adapted for the Times of the HG Wells series, Rick and Sheilagh are winding down. They agree to not see each other anymore; it’s just too strange.

A free man again, Rick must end Prague Spring, as the Temporal Integrity Commission‘s enemies have altered history too much, and communism falls a lot earlier than it should have. The negative consequences of this include no Ronald Reagan-inspired SDI, and so there is no global satellite system in place in the 1980s.

This delays the development of the Internet, which in turn delays the development of all manner of innovations, including Warp Drive.

As Rick flies to 1968, he does not realize that someone has cut his time ship’s fuel line; he’ll need to obtain materials in order to fix it. After beaming down to Prague, his luck seems disastrous, as he is hit by a car and dragged, left for dead by a hit and run driver. Milena is outside walking with her sister, Noemy, as they are going to the farmers’ market.

Rick is at least a little big luckier, as Milena is a doctor. Except she’s a gynecologist. Never mind that – at least she and Noemy get him out of the street. But once he’s on her examining table and she’s ready to start x-raying him, she sees his wounds starting to close up, and this astounds her. She immediately realizes, due to the presence of his stem cell growth accelerator, that something very strange is going on. She suspects he’s not human. She’s partly right.

Rick’s luck continues improving, until he realizes just how special she really is. And that he can never have her.

Music

The music is of course from 1968, except for Rick and Milena’s theme, which is Jim Croce‘s Time in a Bottle. Further, this is the only one of the HG Wells stories that does not have a title taken from a lyric. Instead, the references are to Prague Spring and to Richard and Milena’s own thaws.

First of all is Manfred Mann’s The Mighty Quinn
The Box Tops’ Cry like a Baby
The Rascals’ People Got to be Free
also, Jeannie C. Riley’s Harper Valley PTA
Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle
The Turtles’ Elenore
finally, The Bee Gees’ Message to You

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated T.

Upshot

I had originally really loved the Milena character, but had no good place to put her. Once the story got started, though, it flowed smoothly. The HG Wells stories had started off as a bit of a hard slog, as I knew I wanted this story to serve as the centerpiece. So I was itching to get here. By the time I got here, it was all I had hoped for and more, and the transcription of the story became close to taking dictation, which is my favorite way to write.

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Aug

2014

Review – Flip

Flip is a prelude to Reversal.

Background

I wanted a Star Trek fan fiction prequel/origins story for Lili.

While I had stories of her being hired to work on the NX-01, and she had talked about her childhood in Reversal and Together in particular, there was no depiction of Lili as a teenager until this story.

Plot

The story begins with Lili and her grandparents, who sometimes speak English and sometimes speak French, reminding her of a very important appointment.

Naomi Watts as a teenaged Lili O’Day

Lili, like teenagers since the beginning of time, is a bit impatient and annoyed. Clearly, Lilienne and Richard Ducasse have been over this with her several times already.

What’s the appointment? It’s a chance to cook for the head of the Mars Culinary Institute. Impressing the strict judge will get her a place in the school and, potentially, a far better future. Otherwise, as a teenager with mediocre grades and an expunged record for joyriding, she’s got a wonderful future of washing dishes ahead of her, and not much more. This is a chance to excel.

And she very nearly blows it, particularly as the judge is a Vulcan and the dish is lobster en croute. This is a major problem, as Vulcans are vegetarians (that’s Star Trek canon). I write Vulcans as being vegans, so they are even more strict.

Want to know if it all works out? Read on; the story is short.

Story Postings

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Upshot

I loved having the chance to show a little of Lili’s earlier life, and even her Ducasse grandparents, who had been mentioned several times previously but never actually seen in any context other than a dream until this little story.

You can find me on Google+.

Aug

2014

Review – Confidence

Confidence is not a trait I normally link to Daranaean females.

Background

As a means of bringing some positivity to the Emergence series, I added this Star Trek: Enterprise fanfiction about a Daranaean, the younger Inta, as she realizes her dreams of studying art at the collegiate level.

Plot

For Inta, prior to the events in Take Back the Night, her future isn’t looking too terribly rosy. And this is obvious even though baby Inta is just a pouchling.

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Baby Inta | Confidence

Baby Inta, one of the Daranaeans (secondary female)

Her mother, Mistra, is one of the Alpha of Daranaea’s (Arnis) three wives. However, Arnis is cruel, and is abusing the secondary wife (Mistra) and the third caste wife, who is also has the name Inta.

When the elder Inta is killed, the younger Inta – who was originally going to be named Bayla – experiences a profound life change. And so does everyone else in the family. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of the elder Inta’s life and that of her (the elder Inta’s) unborn male child. But for the rest of the family, with one glaring exception, life improves.

As the younger Inta grows up, it becomes clear that she is (a) headstrong and against the idea of marriage and (b) artistically talented. I haven’t decided whether she is a lesbian. She might be. Gay Daranaeans would be in the closet by definition, as that society is utterly committed to marriage and reproduction.

But it doesn’t really matter for the purposes of our story.

In Confidence, Inta realizes her dreams and begins school at Oxford. And on her first day, she surreptitiously sketches her classmate, Declan Reed. She sends the sketch to Malcolm, as it is his birthday, and the families have remained close for years.

Some reviewers have said that Inta is showing, with the drawing, that she has a crush on Declan. I’m not so sure.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

I like this relatively simple story. The younger Inta is a favorite character, but she’s only a small child in Temptation. In Hearts in Time, the ending is a bit bittersweet. Here, she gets a far happier ending, although the possibility exists that she will never find love.

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Jul

2014

Progress Report – July 2014

July 2014 was hot!

Posted Works

The month began with a rather hot week. It could be tough to concentrate on Star Trek fanfiction at times.

First of all, I continuing posting Entanglements on Fanfiction.net and Flight of the Bluebird on the G and T Show Forums.

In addition, on Wattpad, I continued posting The Social Media Guide and My Favorite Things (like kibble). I also added The Tribe, Voracious, Harvest and Protocols to the Before Days collection. For a one-shot science fiction contest, I entered Biases.

Also, I had Theorizing beta read and submitted it to the Delphic Expanse to see how it would do there.

In addition, I started to post The All-Stars on Ad Astra to see if I could get some help with some plot issues I was having. Plus I also posted the teaser copy for Multiverse Mini.

Milestones

Everybody Knows this is Nowhere, A Long, Long Time Ago and The Three of Us all made it to over 10,000 reads on just one URL. Together made it to 20,000 reads on just one URL.

At this point, there are 11 stories with at least 10,000 reads on one URL, and three more (Reflections Down a Corridor, Take Back the Night, and The Point is Probably Moot) have over 10,000 reads on combined URL read counts). Three of those are at 20,000 reads or more, plus two (Intolerance and Fortune) have over 20,000 reads on combined URLs. Reversal now has over 40,000 reads on combined URLs. See the Stats page for individual read and review counts.

WIP Corner

The Barnstorming series got some editing, particularly the first story. I also worked on the next Multiverse adventure, calling it Multiverse Mini.

Prep Work

I finished splitting up The Three of Us for eventual posting on Fanfiction.net. I contributed to the Star Trek Expanded Universes wiki as I get some traffic from there. Also, I performed a ton of SEO work on the blog and the site, too.

This Month’s Productivity Killers

I continued with school work at Quinnipiac. I was also looking for work rather intently. As stated above, the heat also affected my productivity. Sometimes it was just not easy to get comfortable.

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Jun

2014

Blogging Community (Trek)

As a part of Blog Like a Boss week, I wanted to comment a bit on the blogging community we have here, at both Ad Astra and also how it branches out a bit.

Keeping Up With the Bloggers

A dirty little not so secret bit of information is that there are a ton of abandoned or semi-abandoned blogs out there.

Hence I decided to showcase blogs which have at least one post in calendar year 2014. Fortunately, there were quite a few.

Been There, Geek’d That

Rogue Jawa is fairly new to the blogging community. I like his attitude and his direct way of confronting the oddities that we often find in the Star Trek fandom. It may be a big tent, but there’s always going to be some sort of odd squabbling. He takes it on, head on.

Ramblin’ & Writin’

When SL Watson gets cooking, her blog can get very active. I know she’s been writing in the Supernatural fandom; I’d love to see her back blogging and back writing Trek but I know that blogs are the kinds of writing that are often set aside for a while. Plus sometimes, you just get into a fandom and it kinda swallows you. No sweat. It’ll still be here.

Full Speed Ahead

I really love how MD Garcia has put this blog together. It’s visually stunning and stuffed full of all sorts of interesting tidbits about process, characters, scene setting, and more.

FalseBill’s Blog

FalseBill keeps up with blogging well, and his content is often tongue in cheek but never stale. Much like at Full Speed Ahead, the blog is pretty to look at, and covers a wide spectrum of writing, including original content only found on the blog.

Trekiverse

Truth is, Trekiverse is a different animal, as it is the home of more than one blogger and is intended to support the Trekiverse site. That site is an archive of much older Star Trek fanfiction, coming from the newsgroups alt.startrek.creative, alt.startrek.creative.all-ages, and alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated, and/or directly submitted. Great to see a new home for these old favorites!

zeusfluff’s Star Trek: TNG Fanfiction and Prompts Blog

Another new blogger, zeusfluff has jumped in without fear. This blogger is doing a great job with cross-promotions, which is (shh, don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret!) one of the points behind these blogs.

The Farthest Star

JayLR’s blog is mainly about Star Trek: Swiftfire, but he’s taken to answering some of our older blog prompts. It’s neat to see a new take on an older prompt. And that reminds me: I need to come up with some fresh prompts!

Miranda Fave’s Meanders

MF’s blog is another visual stunner, just lovely and filled with great images. What I also like about his blog is how he gets into his posts. They aren’t quickies; they’re well thought-out. He’s also a thoughtful reviewer, and that shows in his blogging.

Boldly Reading

No tour of our personal Trek Blogiverse would be complete without a glance at Boldly Reading, which is our book club’s blog.

Miranda Fave and I have tried to make it visually appealing and keep it fresh.

We’re taking this summer off, though, so that we can turn our attentions more fully to the 2014 version of the Twelve Trials of Triskelion. Plus I’ve got schoolwork.

Fan Fiction Archive Blog

Every other week, I write a blog roundup post, to cover all of the above bloggers. Furthermore, I’ve been promoting the 2014 version of the Twelve Trials of Triskelion. Fortunately, finding up to date content has been pretty easy this summer.

Whither Our Other Blogs?

There are a number of blogs that have gathered a bit of dust. And so I exhort you, fellow bloggers! Blow that dust off! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Or, something like that.

I love blogging, and I love reading others’ blogs in the blogging community. ‘Nuff said.

Jun

2014

Progress Report – June 2014

June 2014 was busy.

Posted Works

This was another productive month and I wrote a ton of Star Trek fanfiction! It started with adding Legends, Seven Women to In Between Days context. For the Steal All the Toys challenge, I wrote a story in funngunner’s universe, called Hub of the Universe, and one in FalseBill’s universe, called Bomb(e).

Extras

In addition, in response to a prompt about the natural world, I returned to the Multiverse II universe with a sequel featuring Rita Spinelli, Sky (Speranza Memoria) Spinelli, and Donald Janeway, called Oh My Darling. In addition, I added a fundraiser story ($5/drabble) called New Toy, which is set in the HG Wells universe. FalseBill added a Daranaean story, called Third Worth More than First. For the daily prompt challenge, I followed Declan Reed’s spiritual journey, with Faith. Plus I posted the Daranaean novel, Flight of the Bluebird. FalseBill added another letter to the epistolary work we’re writing together, Dear Naurr, Dear Lili, which takes place in the period between Reversal and Intolerance. Together, he and I collaborated and created Dishing it Out.

More Extras

Also, I finished posting Reflections Down a Corridor on Fanfiction.net and began to spin out Entanglements. Reflections had the most reads and the most reviews (and the most follows, so people were truly engaged) of anything I had ever posted on that site, so I made sure to tell my readers that the next story was Entanglements in order to try to get as many as possible of them to read the sequel as well. So far, that has been paying off, and the new story is averaging about 92 reads per chapter. The first one averaged just over 179 reads per chapter, so Entanglements is still ramping up, I believe.

On Wattpad, I continued to post the Social Media Guide. I added The High Cost of Dissidence, Detroit Rock City, Gainful to the Before Days collection. On a lark, I added a little contest story called My Favorite Things (like kibble). I also added A Perfect Note to the Future Matches collection.

In addition, on G and T Show forums, I finished posting Take Back the Night. I posted Some Assembly Required, Temptation, and Debate. I started posting Flight of the Bluebird.

Finally, on the TrekBBS, I answered their Other Universes challenge with the Quantum Leap crossover story, Theorizing.

Milestones

Revved Up exceeded 20,000 reads. The Social Media Guide received over 200 reviews for only a little over 1,000 reads. See the Stats page for individual read and review counts.

WIP Corner

I did some work on the wholly original story, The Obolonk Murders.

Prep Work

I split up Entanglements into chapters for posting on Fanfiction.net. Also, I did a small amount of work on the Star Trek Wiki. In addition, I worked on SEO a lot.

This Month’s Productivity Killers

So as ever, school work at Quinnipiac took a lot of my time. I also spent a great deal of time correcting and perfecting the SEO on my professional social media blog.

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Review – A Perfect Note

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Progress Report – September 2014

Posted Works

Milestones

WIP Corner

Prep Work

This Month’s Productivity Killers

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Portrait of a Character – Wesley Crusher

Origins

Portrayal

Personality

Relationships

Robin Lefler

Lakeisha Warren

Mirror Universe

Quote

Upshot

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Progress Report – August 2014

Posted Works

Milestones

WIP Corner

Prep Work

This Month’s Productivity Killers

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Spring Thaw

Background

Plot

Music

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Review – Flip

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Review – Confidence

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Progress Report – July 2014

Posted Works

Milestones

WIP Corner

Prep Work

This Month’s Productivity Killers

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Blogging Community (Trek)

Keeping Up With the Bloggers

Whither Our Other Blogs?

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Progress Report – June 2014

Posted Works

Extras

More Extras

Milestones

WIP Corner