Giverny

Mar

2015

Review – Completely Hers

Completely Hers gives Declan a commitment and a half.

Background

After his parents’ death, Declan first cares for an aging Melissa and Norri and then, after their deaths, he returns to Earth to visit Europe.

Paul Bettany as Declan Reed (image is for educational purposes only)

He goes to London and Oxford University (where he is an artist in residence, so that trip does have some actual business attached to it) and then France and the water lilies at Giverny, where Monet painted. This is where he meets Rebecca Shapiro again, and they fall in love.

Plot

There is only one tiny catch, and it is something that even Rebecca does not care about. But Declan does. She is Jewish, and he is not. And so he decides that, in order to give himself up over to her completely and without reservation, he will convert.

Keifer Sutherland as Tommy Digiorno-Madden

The sole plot of this drabble is Declan calling his brother, Major Thomas Digiorno-Madden, and asking if Tommy knows any rabbis. The date is May the 6th of 2213, so the occasion for the call is Tommy’s birthday. He is turning 53. There isn’t enough space in a drabble (they are supposed to be exactly 100 words long, and this one is) for them to exchange pleasantries or for Tommy to mention what he is doing or anything like that. Instead, the quickie story line has to get right down to business, and it does.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K.

Upshot

The introduction of this small plot twist (I had not planned it when I wrote Fortune) proved to be the pathway to another story, Faith. And so this drabble is, in a way, more than just a drabble.

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Feb

2013

Recurrent Themes – Visual Artists

Background

Visual artists are not exactly canon.
Star Trek isn’t known . While there might be artwork on people’s walls, or on shelves, it’s more likely to be something almost functional – or at least unbreakable. After all, ships get tossed around an awful lot.

But I wanted readers to have people they could relate to. And I think visual artists are rather relatable, as their work is similar to what artists do now. Painting, as a technique, has in some ways not changed significantly since we were living in caves. It’s still pigments on some form of canvas. And pottery is even closer to what our remote ancestors were doing.

Appearances of Visual Artists

In Between Days

Marie Helêne Ducasse O’Day

Lili‘s mother, as she recounts in Fortune, is a potter. This is also true in the Mirror Universe, as is seen in The High Cost of Dissidence, where Marie Helêne is a fallen elite.

L’Kor

In Intolerance, Dr. Keleth dreams of home. This includes the paintings, wall hangings and sculptures created by his wife, L’Kor. Even though she is paralyzed from the waist down, she can still be a productive and highly creative artist.

Declan Reed

Lili and Malcolm‘s son is a gifted artist from a young age. In Temptation, Cria and Mistra look over a letter from Malcolm which includes one of Declan’s drawings. Dec is only a young child, but he is still pronounced “very good” by the two Daranaeans. Later, he attends school at Oxford, and is seen there during Flight of the Bluebird. And in Fortune, after Lili and Malcolm have passed on, Declan goes to Europe and, in part, it is to study Monet’s Water Lilies at Giverny.

Monet’s Water Lilies at Giverny

Times of the HG Wells

With little reason to have a visual artist on hand, it’s no surprise that there are no visual artist characters in this series yet, not even in the background.

Interphases

Colleen Romanov

For Azar and Maryam‘s wedding, the Muslim bride’s hands are painted with food coloring, as there is no henna. These include images of procul and malostrea. The artist is an amateur. She is a Navigational crewman who is otherwise not really seen much.

Daranaean Emergence

Inta II

It’s not until Hearts in Time that Inta reveals she is an artist, to Hank Harrison. He takes a look and tells her he thinks her work is very good. She wonders a bit if she could go to a big art school, perhaps with Declan, in order to not only further her education but also maybe meet a man (of pretty much any species) who would truly appreciate her. Later, in Confidence, she starts school, and a gift to Malcolm is her drawing of Declan.

Barnstorming

Crita

For this new series, I want another Daranaean artist. This time, the female is from the third caste (Inta II is from the second caste). Crita is also ambidextrous, and is a bit of a novelty, as she can draw two different images with both hands, simultaneously. This is not an impossibility (at least not for humans, as President James Garfield apparently could write Greek with one hand, and Latin with the other, at the same time). Much like Inta II, she is also a bit lacking in confidence, but at least Crita is trying to make a living at art.

Upshot

I want my Star Trek fanfiction to have an artistic angle that it just doesn’t have in the series or the films. While characters (Data in particular) might paint, no one is really good at it. And rightly so, as they are, instead, engineers or doctors or the like. But in a sophisticated society, there will always be visual artists. I know I will add more as I can.

Jan

2013

Portrait of a Character – Declan Charles (D. R.) Reed

Declan exists because Malcolm got a raw deal.

Origins

After watching the canon E² episode for the first time, I began to think – hey, that’s unfair. Malcolm should have had someone. In a lot of ways, that’s why I write him the way I do, particularly with Lili and particularly with the failed connection in Reversal and then the achieved one in Together. And then when I wrote Temper, I hit upon the ending as it dovetailed with the plot. And that’s how Declan came to be. Even his first birthday is celebrated, in All You Need is Love.

Portrayal

For Declan, I wanted someone with

the coloring of Lili and the rest would be more or less Malcolm. A British actor would be a bonus. Hence I decided on Paul Bettany.

I also think he’s done some interesting, smart work. It’s not just his face that I see in my Star Trek fanfiction.

Personality

Artistic and introverted, Declan is the shyest of the Beckett-Digiorno-Madden children. Even though Neil (and, eventually, Kevin) are younger, it’s Dec who’s the one left bringing up the rear. As a result, Marie Patrice in particular sometimes turns away and gives him a bit of a cold shoulder. This is taken to its extreme in Temper, where she essentially sees him as a weakling. So in the Mirror Universe, of course, that means she treats him like something she’d wipe off her shoe. In Joss‘s case, that means he’s more protective of Declan.

In Fortune, some of Marie Patrice’s antagonism is still shown; it seems she had it all along but the Mirror really brought it out.

Relationships

Louise Schiller

In Fortune, Q reveals that only two of the children ever marry. One is Joss; the other is Declan. But it ends badly with Pamela Hudson‘s niece (Louise is also Cyril Morgan‘s grand-niece), and there are reportedly a lot of court filings. I haven’t written beyond the barest of bones about the divorce, so it’ll be fodder for some future story.

Rebecca Shapiro

It isn’t until a lot later in life that Dec meets Rebecca. Or, rather, he meets her again, for, in The Rite, they have met. But in that story, Dec is a young man and Rebecca is still a child.

Portrait of a Character – Declan Charles (D. R.) Reed

Monet’s water lilies at Giverny

After Lili and Malcolm’s deaths, Declan goes to Europe to study the great artists. This includes going to Giverny to look at Monet’s water lilies. He also heads to England (he had attended school there, and so he has Malcolm’s Leicester accent) and Rome. In England, he meets up with Rebecca, and a romance develops.

After returning, she becomes a part of the family and even gets a tattoo identical to the ones sported by Marie Patrice, Jia Sulu Beckett, Ines Ramirez and Yinora. And then they marry, and have two sons, Peter and Stuart. Rebecca is the love that Declan has waited a lifetime for. In Completely Hers, he asks Tommy if he knows of a rabbi so that he (Declan) can convert to Judaism, as a prelude to marrying Rebecca. In Faith, he converts.

Theme Music

During the events of Temper, Declan is so mistreated that his music is The Cure’s Why Can’t I Be You? The title, most likely, refers to Joss rather than Tommy, although both are stronger than he is. But it’s Joss who’s compassionate.

Mirror Universe

Declan in the Mirror Universe

Declan doesn’t have a mirror counterpart. However, like the other living offspring (except for Neil), he ends up in the Mirror Universe anyway, during Temper.

And that’s a bad situation for him.

While Marie Patrice makes friends with Takara Masterson Sato, Joss shows promising talent in baseball and Tommy works hard to become a Mirror soldier, Declan flounders and is often left behind by the others. Joss takes it upon himself to be Dec’s protector.

Dec is more delicate than the others, and he’s more sensitive, too. He can’t seem to get any traction. It doesn’t help that Tommy and Marie Patrice more or less fully embrace Mirror life, and reject him. Furthermore, it doesn’t help that Lili doesn’t even know him. But then again, given the odd temporal displacements in that story, she hasn’t had the chance to. And because the others refer to him rather pejoratively as “DR“, she doesn’t even realize he’s hers.

Quote

“I just want to look at your smile close up.”

Upshot

I wanted an artistic character, and I wanted one for whom love wasn’t easy. After all, Lili and Malcolm and Doug (and even Jay and José) all wait a long time before taking the plunge but, once they do, it’s easy. For Declan, it’s not so simple.

I like this character. I’m sure I’ll write more about him.

Giverny

Review – Completely Hers

Review – Completely Hers

Background

Plot

Story Postings

Rating

Upshot

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Recurrent Themes – Visual Artists

Background

Appearances of Visual Artists