Hikaru Sulu

Review – Mirror Masquerade

Review – Mirror Masquerade

Mirror Masquerade?

Mirror Masquerade Background

The idea was to cross over, and I am pretty sure that was the original prompt. And so I decided to cross over between the Original Series and Enterprise. However, the twist would be to add the Mirror Universe in for some spice.

Plot

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Mirror Masquerade

Mirror Masquerade

So much like in Concord and Crackerjack, and The Continuing Adventures of Porthos – The Future Cat, a temporal situation is encountered. And a lot more like Theorizing and Day of the Dead, two people switch places. Although in this instance, it is Travis Mayweather and Hikaru Sulu. So for the purposes of this story, it was the TOS Hikaru Sulu, although it could just as easily have been the Hikaru Sulu from the Kelvin timeline.

For both men, so long as the switcheroo holds up, their lives improve, although Sulu ends up doing better. In the Mirror Universe, any advantage is a good one. Sulu finds someone who interests him – Preston Jennings. This establishes, in my fanfiction universe, that Hikaru Sulu is bisexual is not gay, which was a deliberate call out to Takei’s well-known homosexuality. Travis sees an immediate improvement in his life as he gets away from Empress Hoshi. It feels like it is going to be a win-win all around. But we just can’t have that. There has to be some reason it all happened.

And then, of course, it’s time to undo it all and pull the rug out from under them. Sorry, fellas.

Story Postings

Rating

The story is Rated K+.

Upshot

The idea of shifting bodies in time is always a fun one, although I confess it isn’t always so easy to figure out a plausible explanation for the trade. I am running out of ideas here!

Uh, help?

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Posted by jespah in Hall of Mirrors, In Between Days series, Review, 0 comments

Portrait of a Character – Preston Jennings

Portrait of a Character – Preston Jennings

Preston Jennings is one of my earlier creations.

Origins

Before Lili, I needed someone who would serve meals to Captain Archer. This does not only mean before she joined Starfleet; this would also be for before I had even created the character. Preston predates Lili, and goes all the way back to More, More, More!

Portrayal

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Billy Zane as Preston Jennings (image is for educational purposes only)

Billy Zane as Preston Jennings (image is for educational purposes only)

Preston is played by Billy Zane.

I like the actor’s suave charm and handsome air.

Personality

Pleasant but sometimes prone to meltdowns, Preston is just trying to get ahead. He’s also one of the four gay men on the ship (the others are Dave Constantine, Lucas Donnelly, and Frank Todd). When the Xindi War breaks out, he seizes the opportunity to do something different, and transfers to Navigation. He is the first person to admit that Lili is a far better cook than he ever was. This is put on display in Before the Fall, where Will Slocum pretty much misuses his talents in a cooking competition with Lili and her partner, Brian Delacroix. Will continues to joke about burdening Preston with Lili’s work, in The Continuing Adventures of Porthos – The Future Cat.

Relationships

Lucas Donnelly

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Billy Zane as Preston Jennings (image is for educational purposes only)

Billy Zane as Preston Jennings (image is for educational purposes only)

During both kicks back in time, Preston and Luke end up together.

Neither of them are 100% thrilled with this; Dave Constantine is considered to be more of a prize. But they make the most of it, even though they aren’t necessarily compatible.

Hikaru Sulu

It’s only in Mirror Masquerade where this happens, and only in the Mirror Universe, in an altered timeline.  Preston is, just like in the Prime Universe, serving food. But there is no Lili (her counterpart is dead), so he still has that job, whereas in the Prime Universe, he switches over to Navigation.

When Sulu and Mayweather are switched, Sulu flirts with him in the chow line, and Preston gets a major promotion, to Captain’s Man. But it’s all for naught, as Carmen fixes the timeline and everything goes back to the way it’s supposed to be.

Mirror Universe

Barking up the Muse Tree | jespah | Janet Gershen-Siegel | Billy Zane as MU Preston Jennings (image is for educational purposes only)

Billy Zane as MU Preston Jennings (image is for educational purposes only)

In the Mirror Universe, Preston never stops serving chow, both in the correct timeline and in the Mirror Masquerade alternate timeline.

However, in the Temper alternate timelines, he is not seen working in the kitchen. Is he dead? Absent from the ship? Working elsewhere? The truth is, I just didn’t write him. But there’s no reason why he can’t end up in a related story, at a later date.

Quote

“Are you sure we don’t have to prep for this?”

Upshot

I don’t really know this character well enough, and would like to rectify that at some point.

Stay tuned.

Posted by jespah in Hall of Mirrors, In Between Days series, Interphases series, Portrait, 11 comments

Progress Report – October 2013

Progress Report – October 2013

October 2013 was busy!

Posted Works

The month began with posting The Medal on Fanfiction.net. Barking up the Muse Tree | Janet Gershen-Siegel | jespah | Quill | October 2013 On that site, I also posted A Hazy Shade, Completely Hers, Remembrance, November 13th and Who Shall Wear the Robe and Crown? Except for the odd stories Dear Captain and Dear Naurr, Dear Lili, that completes In Between Days as it currently stands.

I’ll add Dear Captain and will then begin to fill in the Emergence series before moving onto the E2 stories. As a result, I added The Cure is Worse Than the Disease and began to spin out Take Back the Night.

Series Writing

In order to better round out Clockworks, I added Preparations and It’s not a Reset if you remember it. In order to round out Hall of Mirrors, I added Escape. To fill in the E2 stories a bit better, and to answer a prompt about officers acting childishly, I added a piece about Sandra Sloane‘s business, called Supply and Demand.

To answer a prompt about personnel who clash, I wrote Worry.

The monthly challenge was to put a character into a different setting; I chose to cross over from one Mirror Universe canon episode, TOS’s Mirror, Mirror to the two Mirror Universe episodes in Enterprise (In a Mirror, Darkly and In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II). The crossing characters are Travis Mayweather and Hikaru Sulu; I named the story Mirror Masquerade and it even crossed over to the HG Wells universe.

I added Detached Curiosity & Idle Speculation and Consider the Lilies of the Field to Arch Angels as I have started to get more feedback there.

Wattpad

I also experimented by adding A Single Step to Wattpad. This resulted in a tiny read count. Once I got a follower, I added more stories to complete my profile there and see what would happen. These are from various eras and series, to cast a wider net than usual. I added Before the Fall, Party on Risa, Milk, The Black Widow and D’Storlin. I also began to add the Bron and Sophra stories as a package in order to see where that takes me. They are all under the umbrella title of The Reptile Speaks.

I added Transported separately, given that the rating is different. The site is probably outside of my demographic wheelhouse but there might be traction for a story like Widow. I also noticed I am getting some site traffic from Wattpad. It might not be too useful for read counts, but instead could be a source of social referrals.

Fictionpad

I also joined Fictionpad and copied my Fanfiction.net stories over there. The site is in beta but it looks promising. I am already getting some small read counts on a few short stories. Hopefully, once that site is out of beta, I’ll start to see the numbers really rise. In response to a request, I started writing another Porthos-centric story. This one is a prequel (despite its title) and is called The Continuing Adventures of Porthos – The Future Cat.

Milestones

Individual Read Counts

For individual read counts, the following stories have 20,000 or more on one URL –

And, for individual read counts, the following stories have 10,000 or more on one URL –

All of these were accomplished on Ad Astra.

More accomplishments

The following stories have between 5,000 and 9,999 reads on one URL –

Again, these numbers are all coming from Ad Astra.

Combined Read Counts

Apart from the others at over 5,000 reads for just one URL, the following combine to 5,000 – 9,999 reads when all postings’ URLs are taken into consideration –

WIP Corner

I continued working on Play, the second story in the Barnstorming series. I separated Reflections Down a Corridor into chapters in preparation for posting it on Fanfiction.net

Prep Work

I added more depth and detail to the Star Trek Expanded Universes Wiki, as I am getting traffic from it.

Progress Report – October 2013

NaNoWriMo 2013

In a fit of insanity, I signed up for NaNoWriMo and will see how that goes. But I do have a decent idea for a wholly original science fiction story.

I have not done completely, 100% original writing in a while, so that will prove interesting.

So I hope I don’t get too busy!

This Month’s Productivity Killers

As per usual, looking for work took up a lot of my time.

Posted by jespah in Fan fiction, Progress, 3 comments