#janeways favorite boys

[aquamonstra]

Janeway every time she talks to Tom and Harry:

(shout out to @muiromem for the inspo 😂)

[spocks-evil-godmother]

Every time Janeway has a one on one conversation with Harry Kim she's like 😍😍😍 Harry Kim I love you son boy you are my favorite child. And he is aw thanks captain mom. Who is doing it like them

[love-and-hisses]

Former foster update! It's Elly May (formerly Janeway) and Jethro (formerly Spock), who we were fostering this time last year as part of the Trekklings litter!

Tammy says: "Well, The Hillbillies turned 1 on July 22 and we celebrated. They got a couple of new toys. An all-in-one laser pointer, feather teaser and ball chase (pictured) and a toy gun that shoots pom poms. I think their favorite part was each getting a Churu - no sharing!! LOL

Jethro is quite the momma's boy and Elly May still marches to her own drummer. They have grown into beautiful fur-kids and I love them dearly."

(Thank you Tammy!)

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

Star Trek Prodigy Pre-Season 2 Rewatch

Lost and Found Part 1 and 2

I know there was a lot of crap about the opening episodes being too Star Wars-y, and I really don't know what they're complaining about. Is it just too jarring that we don't start on a starfleet ship? Because I can think of at least three other Trek shows that don't. And it's predecessor, Voyager, also starts with a group of non-starfleet officers running away from a larger enemy. What have you got against scrappy purple boi, internet critics!

I love seeing Dal here. Knowing how much he grows in one season. I also forgot just how dangerous Tars Lamora was. The surface is deadly. the deep mines are deadly. Even the main area Dal starts in, which seems well trafficked, he is nearly crushed in a random rock fall in the first escape attempt. It does a lot to emphasize just how high the stakes were!

As always I lost track of time the minute the ship's escape sequence started. There are so many details and so much beauty animated into every shot. The sequence makes the ship feel like a tangible real thing, a character in and of itself.

Some of my favorites:

Then this shot of the shields protecting the Dal from Drednok makes me gasp every time!

And, even after so many rewatchs too, hearing Hologram Janeway speak for the first time right before she appears at the end still makes me squeal. It was the first new time I'd heard Janeway's voice in like 20 years and it continues to be as exciting as the first time!

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s6 ep19: Child's Play

This one really packs a wallop. I don't rewatch it very often because it's kind of a lot, but it's extremely well done- while I wouldn't say it's one of my favorites, considering what happens in it, I still think it's one of Voyager's best episodes.

(Spoilers ahead- for anyone who hasn't seen this one before, I'd recommend watching it first- the ep won't hit the same if you know what happens going in.)

Seven's relationship with Icheb was honestly the thing that made me really care about her at last, since it was the first time I truly felt like she loved someone. In this episode, especially, you see how Seven's experience of being a parent to Icheb brings up her trauma over her own parents, but that also gives her a path to heal it. Her desire and need to do better for this boy than her parents did for her is very raw and heartbreaking, and Jeri Ryan's eyes subtly show us the entire struggle going on in Seven's mind throughout this story. I think it's one of her best performances. (Though I noticed they were putting a lot of soft focus lenses on her close ups in this ep, which they usually do when they're trying to make female characters look pretty and romantic, and it seemed a very odd choice for an episode with such dark subject matter. Women don't have to be beautiful when they're processing trauma, dudes.)

It opens with an adorable Voyager Science Fair for the children in the mess hall- I love that Naomi has other children to play with now, and I love that the Voyager crew has embraced the Borglets as their own and come up with activities like this to make them feel important and valued as part of the ship's community. Janeway, Chakotay, and B'Elanna are the judges, and it's cute to see them interact with the kids, especially B'Elanna, who doesn't get scenes where she's able to be soft and lighthearted often enough. It's also cute how proud Seven is of all her charges- she's obviously made progress in loosening up the reins to let them explore and create things on their own, and is now reveling in their creativity like a proud mama. Icheb's project is a device to help Voyager scan for wormholes, and Seven tells the captain that Icheb wants to join the Voyager crew one day in astrometrics. Janeway has to burst Seven's bubble and tell her that isn't possible, because they found his parents, and they have to bring him home.

Seven is shaken by the news, and can't even bring herself to tell Icheb at first. When she does, he doesn't want to leave any more than she does, but she tries her best to put a positive spin and be stoic for him.

When they arrive at his home planet, they find a farming community that has weathered many Borg attacks, which goes to great pains to disguise what little technology they have left, so as not to attract Borg attention. They shot the planet scenes on location, and they look great. The matte painting of the settlement inside a big canyon, surrounded by the ruins of an advanced city, is very cool. I'm not sure if they actually filmed in a canyon, or if they added cgi later, but the outdoor location shots all look like they're surrounded by the canyon, and it looks amazing. The grand, sweeping scale of it is really beautiful, and gives a wonderful sense of place.

Icheb meets his parents, but he remembers litle about them. He's unimpressed by his homeworld, since he wants to explore the stars, and they barely have a handful of space-worthy ships left. He asks to go back to Voyager, and Janeway lets him, but she's determined to help him reconnect with his parents. Gradually, as he spends more time with them, he begins to remember and reconnect with them and their community, and becomes interested in their genetics and biotechnology expertise that they use to farm the inhospitable land. Eventually, he decides to stay with them.

Seven is heartbroken, and angry at his parents for staying on a planet so close to a Borg transwarp conduit, which puts Icheb in danger of getting reassimilated again. She doesn't believe they're doing enough to protect him, but she has no choice but to accept Icheb's decision to stay. Voyager leaves, and she tries to make peace with it, but when Mezoti tells Seven a different version of Icheb's assimilation than his father did, Seven becomes suspicious. She investigates the Borg database from the Borglet's former ship, and finds out that the Borg's records of his planet don't match his parents story. She tells the Captain that something is wrong, and Voyager turns around to find out what they're hiding, and why.

The next scene is one of the most horrifying twists in any Star Trek episode, ever. Icheb's parents play out an awful MacBeth-like scene of going back and forth over whether they should just keep Icheb, or use their son as they planned to- we don't know what it is they have in store, but we know it isn't good, as they rationalize the necessity of giving up their child. An unsuspecting Icheb walks back into the midst of this conversation, after having been out happily playing a ball game with the other teenagers. It's honestly a little hard to watch as his mother attacks him with some sort of injection- he asks his father for help, only to be held down by him to help her sedate him. (There's lots of discourse about who the worst parent in Star Trek is, but I think Icheb's parents win, hands down, no contest.)

Voyager arrives at the planet to question Icheb's parents, but they've already launched the unconscious Icheb in one of their transport ships- Voyager detects the ship en route to the Borg conduit. They learn that Icheb had been genetically engineered to produce a pathogen that kills Borg- that's why all the adult drones died on the cube they found him on. His parents had intentionally sent him to be assimilated as a child, to destroy the Borg and protect their planet. They rationalize it with tearful excuses to Janeway, but Janeway rightfully condemns them, and ignores them to go save Icheb from an incoming Borg cube. They manage to get Icheb out of the Brunali ship, and explode it, which damages the cube from inside, letting them escape before the explosion catches them.

Back on board afterward, Seven finds Icheb analyzing his DNA in the astrometrics lab. He seems unable to engage with his parents betrayal on a personal level, and instead regards their act as an impressive feat of bioengineering. He wonders if he actually was destined to destroy the Borg, and if that would have been better for everyone. Seven, in a marvelous role reversal from when she first came on board, is now the one to assure him that his free will as an individual matters more than any collective goal, and that his life is worth fighting for. He can still fight the Borg in the future, in a way that he choses. It's a really beautiful moment. Bittersweet too, because Seven only has Icheb back because of the horrific negligence of his parents, on a far worse scale than even Seven's own parents managed. But despite having their lives almost stolen by their parents and the Borg, Seven and Icheb have each other now, and the Voyager crew. They have a family who loves them, who they matter to, who will fight for them to the end. In the face of such evil and horror, love and hope still wins out. It gets me every time.

(And I'm not even going to go into the absolute garbage fire of that episode of Picard, except to say it's bullshit, written by people who didn't give a damn about Voyager or it's characters. How anyone could see this episode and want to just throw this relationship in the trash, and spit on absolutely everything this episode was about- it just makes my blood boil. But more than that, I'm just sorry they missed the entire damn point of what Star Trek is about. That show cannot even hold a candle to Voyager, and it will never be canon to me.)

Tl;dr: A truly heartbreaking story, with maybe the most diabolical plot twist in all of Star Trek, but one which ultimately affirms the triumph of love over evil. Beautifully acted, written, directed, and designed. Top tier all around.

[lodessa]

21, 22 and 23 for Janeway, weevil and inara for the character meme

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

Janeway: I love to write Janeway finding a way to have it all, to decide that duty and personal fulfillment don't have to be at odds, that she doesn't have to white knuckle her way through life denying herself her full humanity in the service of some perfect ideal of a leader that she constantly tries to squeeze herself into. But man is her point of view strangling to write from a lot of the time, especially if I'm writing during the canon time frame and timeline of Voyager.

Weevil: I honestly just love getting inside his head. People underestimate my boy (in canon and in fandom), the show sidelines him, but I love to walk around inside and explore all the things he sees, the ones he keeps locked away even from himself as well as the ones he just can't. And from the outside, I like to show him being pivotal to the characters that everyone else cares more about. Sometimes it is hard for me to write the things he actually knows or doesn't know about realistically though, because our spheres of expertise are so different.

Inara: I actually haven't written Inara, but I'm actually suddenly realizing that one of the things all the characters you chose have in common in my mind is their serious tendency to compartmentalize and repress because that's a survival tactic they bought into long before we met them. Because they are all these incredibly insightful individuals who somehow think the wisdom they have when it comes to others doesn't apply for them.

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to this character? Something you don't like?

Janeway: I just want to see her having it all, even if there's some suffering thrown in there as well. What I don't like to see is her drive, intellect, ideals, and strength being sacrificed as a tradeoff for romantic fulfillment or her being characterized with a really patriarchal / "traditionalist" mindset, which feels both sad and OOC for me.

Weevil: I love seeing him being clever and capable, but with a vulnerable side. I love seeing his complexity. I don't like seeing him turned into a caricature or reduced down to one trait.

Inara: I love seeing her friendship with Kaylee uplifted, how just because she's classy doesn't mean she's snobby, how she's truly a kind person. I don't like seeing her genuine pride and satisfaction in her work retconned away.

23. Favorite picture of this character?

This part actually took me so long (partly because google image search is useless now and partly because at one point i lost all the pictures i had saved to my laptop and partly because I am indecisive) and then I just picked some somewhat random ones after all that time waffling and searching.

I know I am in the minority for the fandom, but I love the bun of steel.

Remember that one time that Weevil actually had fun for a moment?

Literallly every picture of Inara is perfection.

[isagrimorie]

Kathryn Janeway, 2+3+20 for the character ask meme?

for this ask game

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

Janeway is a scientist. She was a Science Officer who ranked up to Captain.

Also, I love how when Janeway is furious the looser she gets, the way she struts, and swagger. And drapes on her Captain's chair, and each passing year, the more 'IDGAF' she gets.

First-year in the Delta Quadrant was all about diplomacy and trying to talk to people by season 7, when Chakotay claimed that he was following Janeway's example using diplomacy first I snorted.

Because at that point, Janeway's firmly in the IDGAF zone. She's gonna use diplomacy as a starting point but she's also carrying a big stick behind her back.

Lokirrim Captain: You're still required to submit to inspection.

Janeway: our sensors should also confirm that our weapons are ready to fire. We're both reasonable people. I suggest a compromise. Your vessel will escort us through Lokirrim territory. That way, you can keep an eye on us, make sure we don't reactivate our holodecks. The other alternative is... we destroy your ship.

Janeway Diplomacy is to Speak Softly and Carry a Big Saber so You can Rattle it, and then if they betray you or are actively hostile, stab them.

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

I don't know if I can think of any -- possibly it's her overconfidence in Unimatrix Zero but that's just not great writing and honestly, if they massaged it a little more, I could buy it. It was just clumsily done to get to that point.

Maybe it's her tendency to prioritize Humans over other species? I can't really blame her for wanting a Hologram boy toy, after several years she's allowed. Although, over the safety of her crew? No, I don't believe it.

But mostly even her flaws and prejudices are interesting.

Maybe the least favorite canon thing where Janeway chose not to pursue anything romantic in the show? Romancing and having different love interests are okay for male captains but not women captains. Kate Mulgrew was very protective of that, and I get it because it was the 90s, and people would perceive it differently.

Oh, another thing I dislike: The new beta canon thing-- how Janeway kept a hold of her ex-fiancee years after he broke up with her. And also, I'm not sure I like the whole Amelia Janeway of it all they added in the books.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

I do think it's still Tuvok. Especially whenever Tuvok passive-aggressively plays the 'I'm her Best Friend' game against Chakotay. And he's the only one keeping score.

Not an ideal best friend but I love the headcanon that Sisko and Janeway were either in the same class in the Academy or were in similar circles in the Academy.

[frogsmulder]

What's the origin of your blog title? Mulder crouching in a frogs position also David Duchovny's famous jeopardy line "what are frogs"

OTP(s) + Shipname: Mulder and Scully, MSR. Janeway and Chakotay J/C. If its not a barely canon ship from 90s scifi with slow burn and mutual pining I'm not interested.

Favourite colour: Blue <3

Favourite game: Rayman? If you mean like computer games.

Song stuck in your head: I don't actually know. I have like one bar of music in my head, almost no lyrics, all I know is that it was in the charts when I was at primary school. Okay it was the verse from Olly Murs' heart skips a beat.

Weirdest habit/trait? Um, I don't usually wear socks around the house? Is that weird?

Hobbies: honestly at this point it feels like I don't have any. I like to read/write fic and draw and bake/cook but I haven't done those in ages. Also trying to get back into rock climbing.

If you work, what's your profession? I am a student of linguistics ehehe

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be? Actually would wanna be some type of artist like a pot thrower

Something you're good at: writing I like to think, people seem to tell me so. I'm alright at cooking but I'm not brilliant, I just make nice things that are tasty, nothing fancy.

Something you're bad at: sticking to a timetable and actually doing shit on time

Something you love: I've been missing my family alot lately, I think also bc my childhood dog died new years day and I haven't been able to go back home yet and give her my love in her resting place.

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: The X-Files, I mean it's why we are here. Also star trek and doctor who. And also language change over time and variation among dialects is my jam. I mean I could talk for hours on anything I have a base level understanding of. I am a yapper.

Something you hate: closed mindedness, being tired, deadlines, having to deal with my dad's lack of "that's weird" radar.

Something you collect: pressed pennies and special coins but I hate this new cashless society we are living in

Something you forget: literally everything all the time

What's your love language? Gift giving probably and also quality time but I think that's more being an extrovert

Favourite movie/show: the x files, Star Trek, don't make me choose between them. Also Spaceballs and Hot Fuzz

Favourite food: tuna mayo pasta with onion cucumber tomato black pepper and lemon juice

Favourite animal: dogs. Literally we made the perfect animal

What were you like as a child? Somehow both shy and arrogant. Smart. Competitive. Also frequently mistaken for a boy

Favourite subject at school? Literally all of them. But particularly German and Science and Maths

Least favorite subject? Only really when I got to A Level and tried to do physics A level and it sucked ass I couldn't do it.

What's your best character trait? I really struggle with a sense of self so I'm not sure I could say. I don't really know what I'm like

What's your worst character trait? Again couldn't really say

If you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be? Having time to relax and sleep and not having to think about all these goddamn essays

If you could travel in time who would you like to meet? Noone in particular I don't think. I'd rather experience the time period. I've always wanted to go to Victorian England. Actually I would like to meet past family members who lived during that time.

Recommend one of your favourite fanfics (spread the love!): I really wanna reccommend Parallax by @dreamingofscully but it isn't up on ao3 anymore. It's such a good story. I think about it often and I'm so glad I had the chance to download it. Although I'm sure if you ask nicely enough jen will send you a file. It's on my to bind list hehe.

These ramblings were instigated by @sagan-starstuff. I don't really have the energy to tag people to do this but if you see this, I'm tagging you <3

[clementine-kesh]

thinking again about the differences in disciplinary action from voyager’s command trio towards tom and harry (and narrative justification for their actions) because it’s one of those things that’s there in the background but i don’t think the writers were even aware they were doing. obviously there’s the mutiny in resolutions that harry never experienced consequences for despite how big a deal it should be, but another good example is in favourite son when he co-opts control of voyager’s weapons to fire at a seemingly friendly ship based on a hunch. of course janeway’s mad at him for it and briefly suspends him from duty but she also states that she trusts his intentions and is willing to spend resources on proving his intuition correct. see this conversation:

there’s a trust placed in harry by the characters around him and further validated by the narrative that even his transgressions have a greater justification for them. which makes sense when you consider that his role in the story is to be the bright-eyed upstanding young starfleet officer and this is a star trek show, so of course his actions are always ultimately in the right no matter how questionable they actually are. see also: timeless vs. year of hell.

janeway doesn’t extend of the grace she extends to harry in favorite son to tom in thirty days. there’s no question that his actions were those of a rogue agent and he needs to be punished. because he’s still got the stink of starfleet dropout ex-con on him, which gives him an element of unpredictability in the eyes of both his commanding officers and the narrative that can’t be trusted. despite his character development and the fact that his reasons for becoming a fuckup are tens of thousands of light years away he still needs to be kept on a shorter leash than harry.

so like, i get why people think tom is the “bad boy” (for lack of a better term) out of him and harry, because that’s how the narrative their transgressions. tom’s are punished, harry’s are either swept under the rug or narratively justified*. which i think is demonstrative of how the writers conceptualize these characters and, perhaps unsurprisingly, falls in line with how people like them would be treated in an organization like starfleet in real life. you can get away with a lot more if the people around you think of you as inherently “good”.

*with the exception of the disease, but i have other thoughts about why that is, ex. our perfect starfleet ensign is allowed to break rules for The Good Of The Crew but not for sex

[sshbpodcast]

Won’t someone think of the children?! A Dal R'El Appreciation Post

By Ames

Okay, I meant to only do a Rok-Tahk appreciation post because a) she’s the best and b) who has the time to write all these blogposts? But I just can’t help myself. The community’s efforts to #SaveStarTrekProdigy have motivated me to keep the posts going, so here’s some more love for Star Trek: Prodigy. These installments probably won’t be as intense as the Rok post, but check out what makes Dal R'El such a great character.

[images © CBS/Paramount… I guess? For now? Yikes.]

Dal starts off as a terrible captain

The great thing about starting off a character with a lot of messed up personality flaws is that there’s that much room for them to grow. Like I said in Rok’s post: Perfect characters are boring. We saw a similar guided development in Julian Bashir in Deep Space Nine; he was downright unlikable early on until his relationships with other characters on the station gave him some foundation and his experience throughout the seasons provided the building blocks to becoming an ethical, respectable, and likable person. We’re seeing the same thing with Dal, whom we first see as a jerk for a lot of the show. He’s selfish. He’s clueless. He sees his crew members as things that do his bidding while he only does what’s best for him. You’re meant to hate his character. And that’s a good thing, because he’s not done cooking.

Dal comes clean to Janeway

One of the first really redeeming moments we see from Dal is when he first comes clean to Janeway about being Starfleet at the top of “Time Amok.” Damn, I just can’t say enough good things about that episode apparently. It provides so many learning moments for the characters, as you can see in spades in Rok’s plot in that episode as well. Dal could have continued the lie that they are cadets, but he’s growing. And out of some combination of frustration, guilt, and finally doing the right thing, he starts thinking of people other than himself. “Time Amok” is the perfect place for that first step in the right direction since it’s when the kids start acting like a crew themselves, way near the midseason break! Baby steps, Dal. He’s getting there.

Dal has inner demons

The longer character arc for Dal over the course of the season is his quest to find out who his people are. Being the only one of his kind is a huge weight for him to bear, and his loneliness guides his character for better or for worse (very frequently for worse, as mentioned above). He feels alone and so it’s fitting for his character to look out for only himself. It’s a long road to discovering his origins in “Masquerade,” an episode which expounds on his character isolation right when he was feeling like he might belong, and turning that character trait on its head by shifting it to his being an abomination. Dal is incredibly fragile, and it’s only through love from his friends that he starts to accept that he doesn’t need a family because he already has one in them. Sure, that’s a cutesy message, but it’s a kid’s show. Duh.

Dal goes fast

Okay, this one’s silly, but considering the whole Star Trek franchise has decided for some reason that all captains need a catchphrase and also a comical little metascene about them creating their catchphrase, Dal’s quote “Go fast” is probably my favorite. Okay, Captain Pike’s “Hit it” is pretty good too and always delivered excellently (that man can say anything and it’ll sound great), but there’s something innocent and sweet about “Go fast.” Dal is almost always out of his element when captaining the Protostar, and shows his naïveté by calling things childish names like the “pew pew button” and the “beamy part,” and it’s all a nice little giggle because he’s a kid. “Go fast” is the sort of silly that’s appropriate for his character, who is faking it until he makes it. And boy does he make it! Go Dal! 

We love you, Dal! We love the other crew members of the Protostar too! We love Star Trek: Prodigy! Check out the other character appreciation posts for Rok-Tahk, Gwyndala, Jankom Pog, and Zero while you’re here. I know I can speak for not only the other hosts here at A Star to Steer Hey By but for myriad other fans when I seriously hope someone picks up this wonder of a show. We’re really looking forward to seeing more from these amazing child characters, and we’re seriously wishing we get that opportunity. #SaveStarTrekProdigy

[fiadorable]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for the tag, @curator-on-ao3 🫶

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 46 works, but if you parse the three drabble collections and a ficlet collection it jumps up to 96.

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 142,888

3. What fandoms do you write for? Star Trek Strange New Worlds, The Librarians, Once Upon a Tme, Star Trek Voyager, The X-Files (none on ao3), Harry Potter, and King & Maxwell

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Where Flowers Bloom: The F*ck You Bouquet Once Upon a Time, SwanQueen, Rated T, 2.8k words Prom season is keeping Regina Mills, proprietor of Fairytale Flowers, busy, but when Emma Swan storms into her store one day with a unique request and a hidden connection, her day shifts from busy to odd to (dare she say it) hopeful.

revelation in the light of gray Star Trek Strange New Worlds, PikeUna, Rated G, 2.8k words Ensign Uhura stumbles into sickbay late one night and discovers something new about Captain Pike and Number One.

love is a ghost you can't control Star Trek Strange New Worlds, PikeUna, Rated T, 4.3k words One or two times Christopher Pike, uh, asked Una Chin-Riley about romance while they were both serving on the Antares. (This fic was inspired by and based on a scenario referenced in @curator-on-ao3's fic The Haze!)

Of Paperwork, Knots, and Warm Glowy Things, or, Roland Registers for Kindergarten Once Upon a Time, OutlawQueen, Rated G, 10.5k words Sometimes, Henry lets him sit on his bed with his old textbooks splayed open on his lap, the large tomes covering his legs as he runs his hands across the shiny paper, drinking in the bright pictures breaking up the dark columns of text. The older boy warned him he might not have hardbacked books like that until first grade, but Roland doesn't care. He's going to carry his own backpack and learn how to write and memorize all the names of all the bugs in this realm.

Trekalicious Drabbles Star Trek Strange New Worlds, PikeUna + La'an & Chapel + La'an & Una + Sir Adya/Z'ymria, Rated T, 2.1k words A collection of 100 word drabbles for the #Wednesday100 challenge

5. Do you respond to comments? I'm trying to! I'm very bad about doing it in a timely manner 🙈

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Oh, definitely the scorch. That piece is pure, distilled angst.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Of Paperwork, Knots, and Warm Glowy Things is pretty saccharine

8. Do you get hate on fics? Yeah, I attracted a few trolls with So Are We Alright Then?. Luckily they were no match for the almighty "delete comment" function. Most people are nice.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Eh? Kind of? Most of my stuff stays M or below.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I've done one: an ending unforseen, which is a crossover between Strange New Worlds and Voyager. I threw Christopher Pike into the Delta Quadrant on Voyager so he could have a chat with Kathryn Janeway.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yep!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? I can't pick a favorite, but I will say that Mulder/Scully, fanon Janeway/Chakotay, OutlawQueen, and Pike/Una have all been formative ships that I've enjoyed watching/reading/writing for over the years.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? First Day (Once Upon a Time OQ). 1 chapter published as a one shot that was received so well I turned it into a novel-length fic that was never published (19 chapters, 8 alternate universes visited, 40k words written with barely the surface scratched). I love it. It's my white whale. I open it up and marvel at the audacity and ambition of my younger self every now and then.

16. What are your writing strengths? Characterization, dialogue. Sometimes I concentrate hard and pull off some nifty minimalist prose.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Details and self doubt.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I'm not bilingual, so if I did, I would 100% run it by a native speaker if someone was available to spot check.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Either Voyager or X-Files, I can't remember which

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? I love writing the drabbles, they're little puzzleboxes of happy.

tagging: @enterprise-come-in and @meddow with apologies if y'all've been there done that

[los-ninos-tortugas]

Hey! Hi! OMG!! I CANNOT BELIEVE I STUMBLED UPON YOU!! I have to tell you how much I LOVE Set a Course for Home!! When I first saw it on ao3 I about went insane!! Star Trek and rottmnt are two of my favorite things and I- AHHHHH!!! YDOYSUFFUSUSKDJFTZJC I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT!! Voyager is special to me because it’s my mom’s favorite and genuinely so good and throwing Donnie into the mix is so interesting!! The way you wrote he and Janeway in the first couple chapters was so cute and I can see them just having the cutest mentor mentee relationship (cause let’s be real, Janeway has a habit of picking up strays and Donnie is a particularally cute one). Having Samatha be his “official” guardian was such an interesting and great choice as well and Donnie and Naomi having a sibling relationship is so adorable. Donnie is the best big brother! One relationship I think would be interesting would be Tuvok and Donnie. Something about “Mr Vulcan” and “unemotional bad boy” hanging out and having long interesting conversations is so captivating to me. Plus I can just see Donnie learning how to play kal-toh and loving it. He can respect a fellow lover of logic. Honestly just all around love the concept and cannot wait for a fic update!

Good luck in the niche au comp! I hope to see you there and maybe compete against you! 💜🖖

HELLO?? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT YOU MADE MY NIGHT??? qkkwondixjeo 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

I also got introduced to Voyager through my mom! (Honestly if it weren’t for her showing me Voyager I might have abandoned Star Trek altogether, but that’s a story for another time) after getting into rise I was just like, “YES PUT THEM TOGETHER”

The character dynamics are so fun to play around with!!!

Good luck to you too!! I’m really excited it looks like it’s gonna be a lot of fun!! 🤩 🖖

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I have been tagged by @timetravelbypen, yayyyy!! :D

1. How many works do you have on AO3?:

53

2. What's your total AO3 word count?:

1,521,662

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Sailor Moon, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Prodigy, And one Harry Potter story, the xover.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Parent Trap (301)

Sailor Moon H: Order of the Phoenix (283)

Sailor Moon H: Half-Blood Prince (217)

Out of Reach (currently taken down) (150)

Eden's Deception (149)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always try to respond to comments. I especially love when people have questions or want hints about what comes next.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

HAHAHAHAHA oh boy. Um... you... you want me to choose just one? hmmm... Alright so honestly I think while Afterimage and What Even is Three Minutes did numbers on the J/C crowd, nothing tops the cliffhangers at the end of Sailor Moon H: Half-Blood Prince in terms of how much angst they induced in readers. The double whammy: (1) the youngest senshi getting turned into a horcrux and taken hostage by Bellatrix Lestrange and (2) Morgana Avery, the OC whom I had carefully crafted to be a character you loved burning up her boyfriend's shop with dark magic and then casting the Dark Mark in order to infiltrate the death eaters as an undercover spy... My betas and I were taking bets on whether I'd get readers coming after me with pitch forks for that one.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

There's a few contenders but I don't think any happiness quite compares to Captain Kathryn Janeway in The Captain's Secret Santa, getting a puppy for Christmas.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

A smattering of memorable flames which I try to save to reflect back on when I need a good laugh.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

*opens trench coat* Smut you say? Well gosh golly gee. What in the blazes could that be? SMUT. Funny word. Hmmm. I'm not sure I know anything about that.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I have written exactly two. Sailor Delta is on hold for the moment because the other one Sailor Moon H has one story to go. And i think if there were an award for craziest crossover I would submit that one and have a good chance to be in the running. It would win on craziest word count and probably on shenanigans too. And then it had the nerve to give itself a real plot. I started that as a crack fic and it got a mind of its own. And I am still writing it 8 years later XD.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I had all of my unlocked works on AO3 gobbled up by the initial crawl that Open AI used to build Chat GPT and that SUCKED. Not because it's been reproduced wholesale but because they'll use my hard work to make millions of dollars and all of the writers who were included in that dataset are both uncredited and uncompensated. I don't think I've ever had a fic stolen by another human. But if you do see what looks like my fic anywhere fishy, kindly let me know!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No one has but I would be open to it!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've co-written a few!

One for a challenge with @magdalenejaneway,

one with Dawn47 when I was there as a Shakespeare assist.

memorable live-writing adventures with @trekflower. (one of my favorite people to write sexy fic with.)

And the longest one, which I am still so impressed we finished (and still one of my favorite things to reread) was the big Threshold AU Season 7 with @jellybeansarecool

I've talked about cowriting with @theredheadedcaptain but we both agreed that given our penchant for massively long fics that combining both of those tendencies was a very dangerously large project to contemplate XD

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

J/C is very near and dear to my heart but so is the Outer Senshi OT3 and I could never choose between them.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I am determined to finish all of my WIPs. Yes even SMH. Yes I know its been going on for 8 years. I am SLOW, okay. SLOW. Not lost. I know precisely how I want that thing to go.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I don't like tooting my own horn but okay... I feel confident in my ability to plot a long fic and see it through. In my ability to write something that brings you to your knees with emotion. And I do a damn good villain speech.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Time management. Word Count management. Oneshots.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Depends if it's there to be understood in context or there to stand out as not understood. I'd write dialogue in another language if it was there to be understood. I'd gloss over it if the intention was that the character and reader shouldnt understand it. I also wouldnt do it for whole lines of dialogue unless it was for a very good reason. Would prefer to throw in only the untranslateable words or to use greetings/honorifics and other smaller phrasal cues to indicate which language is being spoken.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

W.I.T.C.H. in 2009-2010

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Two:

I fell in love with writing The Universe to Mend this year and I've already re-read it once since finishing it in October. It brought me so much joy. It was such a fun challenge. and I think it was some of the best character work I've ever done.

While I wince when I re-read some of the typos, Pax Lunae was still the first ever story that I felt proud of and that remains true today. It was a challenge to dive into the lore of Sailor Moon and create something that could be canon. It was also the first fic I could hold up and say "Hey! I wrote something the length of a novel. I could write a novel" And I like to reread it to remember that feeling. Someday I'll have a chance to clean up some of the spelling too..

Alrighty let's see. I want to tag @theredheadedcaptain @divinemissem13 @jellybeansarecool and @curator-on-ao3 if they'd like to take a crack at it. and anyone else who follows me and wants to - go for it!.

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s7 ep3: Drive

I used to think this one was kind of underwhelming, except for the proposal scene itself, and the fact that Tom and B'Elanna actually got married. But on rewatch, it actually does have a lot of good qualities that make me like it better than I used to.

I think the main issue it has is that no one episode can really make up for two and a half years worth of ignoring characters and relationships. Voyager essentially became the Seven of Nine show after season 4, and all the characters except for her, and the two characters they pair her with most often, Janeway and the Doctor, got ignored and pushed to the side. It pissed me off at the time, and it pisses me off still, that all the rest of the crew, whom we'd come to know and love throughout the first three seasons, got steamrolled over and reduced to supporting characters in their own show. Part of the reason I couldn't like Seven in the beginning, and still resent her character in many ways to this day, is because she's the reason that characters I would have preferred to have stories about got sidelined and ignored.

B'Elanna and Tom had been two of my favorite characters separately, and putting them together romantically had lots of interesting potential that the show only barely just scraped the surface of most of the time. Beyond season 4, you usually have to squint sideways really hard to glean the tiniest nuggets of character or relationship development for anyone except Seven, and they were no exception. I liked them, and I was rooting for them already, so I could subsist on crumbs, but I do get why some people don't go for them, because the writers basically let them drift aimlessly with no focus on their relationship throughout all of seasons 5 and 6. They probably have more scenes where they actually talk to each other in this one ep than they did those entire two years. Considering the tall order this ep was expected to deliver, it actually did a pretty good job.

The basic premise of this ep is actually very good- the space race looks like a lot of fun, and the subplot of saboteurs trying to derail it works well and ties everything together nicely at the end. The flying scenes are exciting, and seeing the Voyager crew get excited and drawn into some some silly new interest is always so cute. Neelix's takeover of Voyager's comm system as unofficial race announcer is very funny, and seeing the crew all stopping in their tracks to listen, or crowd into astrometrics to watch the Flyer's progress, is peak cute space family stuff. When even Tuvok puts aside his work to watch, I just start grinning like an idiot because it's so. darn. cute!!!

They mention having newly rebuilt the Flyer at the top of the ep, which still seems very soon after it was totally destroyed, but at least it was acknowledged that yes, they rebuilt it, it did get smashed to smithereens a little while ago, unlike the last ep, where it just magically appears again with no explanation.

While testing the new Flyer, Tom and Harry encounter an alien pilot who invites them to the race. They ask their mom Captain Janeway if they can go play with the other kids join the race with the Delta Flyer, because it's gonna be totally awesome in the spirit of Starfleet, convening several different alien worlds who were once at war in peaceful competition. She agrees (and tells her boys to win!), but Tom is so swept up in the excitement that he forgets he was supposed to spend the weekend with B'Elanna. (How do you forget a whole ass weekend?? Like I realize Starfleet people love their jobs, but who forgets weekend plans?? They must have calendars with reminders in the future- we already have that now!)

Anyway, Tom tells B'Elanna about the race, and offers to give it up, since they already made plans together. She tells him it's okay to go do the race, even though she doesn't mean it. She pretends not to be upset to Tom, but Neelix catches her moping in the mess hall and gets her to tell him what's bothering her. Despite being garbage at relationships himself, Neelix offers some sound advice when he tells her to tell Tom she's upset, and that she wants more out of the relationship, and plans to break up with him if he won't give it to her. B'Elanna is usually pretty practical, so the lack of communicating her feelings to Tom is obviously childhood trauma-induced self-sabotage on her part, but there's no counsellor on that ship, so I'm surprised anyone there even manages to pretend to be ok, honestly.

B'Elanna at least realizes Neelix is right, and she asks Harry to let her take his place in the race, so she and Tom can do it together. Tom is surprised when she shows up in the Flyer, but more than that, he doesn't seem happy to see her, which is like, what?? She's literally the chief engineer, she's a great person to have along! But they have her act like she doesn't really know or care about what she's doing for the entire race sequence, and it's like...ugh. I'm so tired of the writers constantly forgetting that B'Elanna is not a clueless girlfriend who's only watching a football game for her boyfriend's sake without understanding it. She's a freaking engineer! She knows and loves ships just as much as Tom does!!! They should be bonding over this stuff! I'm absolutely baffled how time and again, the writers fall into this weird stereotype of heteronormative relationships with them- they are not the car guy and the airhead with nothing in common- they're both car guys! That is very much an integral part of B'Elanna's character! There are plenty of things they can disagree about or misunderstand eachother over to create drama, without having to throw that gross sexist stereotype at them constantly. I mean, they have B'Elanna not look at the race course beforehand - are you kidding?? She has to study ship schematics all the time to do her job- do they really think she'd look at a freaking map and be like 'oh that's too hard and boring for my little girly brain'?! I'm fighting the urge to punch every man in that writers room in his sexist little face!!!

But beyond that, it's really nice that they do finally talk to each other for more than a minute or two in this ep. B'Elanna's reluctance to address her feelings head on leads to passive aggressively dropping hints, which Tom picks up on, so he stops the Flyer and drops out of the race to make sure they can talk about whatever's bothering her without distractions.

The communication issue they have is a realistic one, in which B'Elanna is afraid to tell Tom what she really wants, and sets him up to disappoint her as an excuse to push him away when he can't read her mind and magically give her what she wants. B'Elanna finally relents and comes clean with Tom at last about how she really feels, and what she really wants, and I love that they had Tom drop everything to hold space for her, and prioritize their relationship over any other concern. It nicely circles back to their best core character traits- that Tom always does the right thing when it comes down to the wire, no matter what it costs him, and that B'Elanna will always push through and overcome her fears in order to get done what needs to be done.

Of course, as soon as they start to break down their walls with each other, and have an unbearably sweet scene where B'Elanna finally voices her desire for affection and reassurance, which Tom gives her, along with the beginnings of a proposal- they get interrupted by plot. The alien pilot that invited them to the race is really the saboteur. She rigged the Flyer's fuel convertor to explode and blow up all the ships at the finish line, to end the peace between the formerly warring worlds holding the race. Luckily, Harry had a crush on her, and insisted on being her co-pilot- he discovers her plot, and sends a message to the Flyer to warn Tom and B'Elanna before they cross the finish line.

As they try to eject the Flyer's warp core, and the computer counts down the seconds until it explodes, Tom proposes. B'Elanna doesn't answer, because imminent warp core breach, but once they eject it and the Flyer is safe, Tom asks again, and it's the cutest shit imaginable. And I'm like ok. fine. I'll overlook any flaws in this ep because it had some really good stuff, and I love when my space fam is cute together. After years of them having almost no meaningful dialog or attention paid to their relationship at all, I will take it!!

Back in the day, I was so surprised and grateful that they actually let them get married, that I was willing to overlook the disappointment that they didn't show the wedding. In the intervening years though, I definitely feel the audience got cheated out of that very important moment. They're main characters! How can you have their wedding off screen?! Voyager is a family, a community- coming together to share a wedding between two of their own should be a highlight family moment for the whole crew, but instead, it's glossed over like an afterthought. I just don't understand what got prioritized in later seasons of Voyager- the Doctor having crushes on younger blonde women was somehow deemed worthy of multiple episodes, but Tom and B'Elanna actually getting married was less important to show than that?? Not even like, one brief scene?? A little montage, even?? Come on! We deserved something! I guess they thought 'we already showed their goo copy wedding, that's enough!' but no, actually, I wanted the real one too, thanks! Definitely a big missed opportunity. (Though I suppose I should be grateful B'Elanna was spared the indignity of the heinous boob window wedding dress they made Jadzia wear on Deep Space Nine- I guess I'd rather not see the wedding at all than have them give B'Elanna something like that.)

There are a few weird inconsistencies in this script- when Tom and B'Elanna are arguing, they have B'Elanna retort that Tom was expelled from the Academy, but he most certainly was not- Tom Paris graduated and served as an officer before he was kicked out. Nick Locarno got expelled, and it was for specific legal copyright reasons that Tom Paris is an entirely different person from Nick Locarno- you'd think something that basic would be something anyone getting paid to write a Voyager script would know. How did that line even make it through to the episode?? Did no one know who these characters were anymore?? Did no one care?? (I think it would have been hilarious if they'd have Tom shrug it off and say, "that wasn't me, that was Nick Locarno" and just move right on like it was nothing, no further explanation.)

Also, I didn't love that they gave Harry another alien crush subplot. The only scenes he and Tom get together anymore are always Tom admonishing Harry over some crush- their relationship also feels like it's been ignored and pushed to the side since Seven-mageddon. Plus, it feels like they've portrayed Harry as somehow younger and more naive over the years, rather than less. It doesn't work, or make sense. I love when Tom and B'Elanna and Harry all hang out together, and they all have some really fun banter here, but I would like to see them talk about something besides Harry's latest crush at some point.

But all in all, it was fun to watch, and it gave us some really nice character development and moments that, as a Tom and B'Elanna fan, I'd been waiting for for quite a while.

Tl;dr; A fun plot that finally gave more substantial focus to Tom and B'Elanna's relationship than they'd had in years. Not a perfect script, but a solid one, which actually moved their story forward in a positive way.

[joshuaalbert]

harry kim… ive missed your voyager posting but i want to hear your thoughts on dear harry boy…

favorite thing about them

he's my most favoritest guy. i love him. if like .03% of the things that had happened to him happened to me i'd be out there murdering bitches or something and he's still just out here being a nice friendly guy who tries his best for the ship and for other people. like sometimes they do a rly good job of making it clear that there's this very deep well of resolve to him and he is an incredibly hard person to break despite experiencing the horrors so so so often. BUT i also love it when he's unhinged like he absolutely deserves to get to go off the rails sometimes. and i like it when he's making little petty comments he deserves that too.

least favorite thing about them

i mean we all know this but he's SO fucked over by the writers/showrunners. there's literally no reason for the no promotion/left out of major storylines/frequently sidelined in favor of other characters deal except some like. racist bullshit. writers will be like "well we just don't think he's an interesting character" bitch then make him interesting lol that's your job.

brOTP

harry and b'elanna literally the single most important dynamic in the show to me. every episode that they don't have a scene together i think about committing unfathomable acts of violence. i really enjoy that they genuinely feel like friends who care tremendously about each other (although i wish we saw them hanging out more off duty or in the mess hall or whatever).

also like idk if it's a brotp because they're not like Bros but the harry and janeway dynamic makes me feel uhh vaguely insane. now that you're here someone can understand what i mean when i say it's kind of the inverse of picard and wesley in a lot of ways lmao.

OTP

honestly i cannot deny the weird gay thing he and tom have going on. with tom and b'elanna i can be like yeah she deserves better but a) he's usually better to harry than b'elanna because the writers don't seem to know how to write romantic storylines without some bullshit and b) it lowkey doesn't matter if harry deserves better because regardless of my opinions they just Do Have a weird and compelling fucked up gay thing. the chute literally exists.

also my beloved friend @aberfaeth who was my source of voy knowledge before i started watching voy is a ptk enthusiast and i like. very much see that in some arrangement i like whatever they've all got going on

nOTP

uhhh. hm. i dont know that i have one in terms of things that people actually ship? i am very not fond of the show's trend of giving him like tall blonde traditionally (western) beautiful women as like short term love interests that we're clearly supposed to assume he has absolutely no chance with because he's a lame nerd. in a vacuum him always going for like women that fit a specific mold of Hot Girl that he basically never actually has chemistry with would give comphet but i do think in this case it's far more representative of, again, the racist bullshit and it being very clear that they don't see him as being a viable romantic option.

random headcanon

i have not been rotating him in my mind long enough to have a ton of these but i do very much stand by my harry and b'elanna undefeatable battle bots build team headcanon

unpopular opinion

im not immersed enough in the voy ecosystem enough to know what opinions are popular tbh but i do think any headcanon that has harry like pining after tom is simply not a correct interpretation of events imo

favorite picture of them

like I said. I like it when he’s unhinged and when he’s petty.

[spacefinch]

MSB character headcanons: Dorothy Ann

Huge Star Trek fan. Her favorite series are TOS and Voyager, and her favorite character is Captain Janeway.

Has a pet Maine Coon cat named Teddy. She named him that because he’s big and fluffy, like a teddy bear.

Is always torn between just enjoying a sci-fi film and getting annoyed with the scientific inaccuracies. She is usually able to let it slide, since she’s been on some wild adventures as a student in Ms. Frizzle’s class.

Cannot for the life of herself remember any good jokes. Carlos keeps trying to teach her some jokes, but D.A. has trouble memorizing them. Facts and figures are much easier.

The one time D.A. does crack a joke on screen (“We’re on the ‘erode’ to ruin” in Rocks and Rolls), it’s the first time she’s ever done so without having to consult a book. And of course, Carlos is very proud of her.

By day: serious science student. By night: writes fanfiction on AO3. She goes by the username “stellar-falcon.”

Doesn’t want anybody to know she writes fanfiction. Unfortunately, it’s becoming harder and harder. The whole class loves stellar-falcon’s Star Trek fics and they keep up with their stories almost religiously.

Also has a pet parrot named Dinah. Dinah is older than D.A. herself!

She’s from a fairly well-off family.

100% autistic. Loves infodumping to anyone who will listen. Never goes anywhere without her book bag, which I’m pretty sure is her comfort item.

On her friendship with Carlos: (I ship the 2 of them btw)

Right off the bat, the two of them were rivals. Sure, they were also friends, but boy, were they competitive.

For the longest time, only Phoebe knows D.A. has a crush on Carlos.

Said crush developed very gradually. D.A. and Carlos tend to bicker a lot, but after a while, they find they actually enjoy each other’s company.

One thing they have in common is that they both like birds. Unfortunately, Phoebe knows this, and keeps trying to set them up for bird-watching dates.

Example:

Phoebe: Hey, D.A., are you free this weekend? I’m going birding at Walkerville Swamp.

D.A.: Sure, I’d love to go! I’ll get some great observations for my bird journal.

Phoebe: Great! See you on Saturday!

Phoebe, a few minutes later: Hey! Carlos! Do you want to go bird-watching with me on Saturday?

Carlos: That sounds fun, but I’m kind of busy. (Lying)

Phoebe: ….

Carlos: Fine, I’ll come. But both my siblings are coming.

Phoebe, thinking: hmmm. That complicates things.

The next Saturday:

Everyone: Arrives at the swamp, but separately.

Phoebe: D.A.! You made it just in time! There’s a whole bunch of cool birds here!

D.A. : Whoa, cool!

The two of them: *nerding out about birds and other swamp wildlife*

Meanwhile: *Carlos and his two siblings (Mikey and Maria) are looking for birds as well*

Phoebe, seeing them: Hey, glad you could make it! We found a big flock of black-necked stilts here!

Carlos: This, I have to see! … Oh, wow!

Carlos, D.A., and Phoebe: *nerding out about birds*

Phoebe: *sneaks away, leading Mikey and Maria with her*

D.A., not noticing at first: *talking about swamp birds* Isn’t that cool, Phoebe? Phoebe? Where are you?

Carlos: Huh. I don’t see her, either. She must have wandered off. *notices that his siblings are also gone* WAIT A MINUTE!

D.A.: Did Phoebe just—

Carlos: *sigh* Yep.

D.A.: I’ll get her for this!

They still laugh about the “black-necked stilt incident” long after it occurs.

More notes:

Runs a science-themed blog on Tumblr. Completely separate from her fanfiction account. She didn’t make a sideblog for her fanfiction. She made an entirely different account.

Enjoys having “girls night” with Phoebe, Keesha, and Wanda. What this means is watching movies, playing card games, trying on clothes, etc…

There’s also a fair amount of scary storytelling that goes on during the girls’ sleepovers.

Usually D.A. hosts the sleepovers, since her house is the biggest and has the comfiest guest spaces.

Everyone is still trying to solve the mystery of who stellar-falcon really is. Mikey has a pretty good guess, but surely it can’t be D.A.? Surely it’s someone else who’s writing these really good Star Trek stories….