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shhh-secret-time · 7 months ago

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hello ^^, i saw your secret soulmate au about craig, i don't have the words to explain how much i giggled, twirled my hair and everything XD! well, when you have the time, could you do a craig x clyde x reader smut? of course, if you feel comfortable with it! reader can be female or gn. it's practically normal smut but just craig fucking the reader from behind and clyde from the front, so that's it! tysm for reading, i love your writing too! <33 -✨️ Anon (I'm still new to tumblr so i might get confused on some things sometimes!)

Completely understandable, I too am confused with how tumblr works and I've been on this godless site since fucking Dash Con. I'm glad you liked the way I wrote those dorks! And thank you for fueling my Clyde agenda!

Warning: NSFW, Strong-Language, Dirty Talk, Slight Sub/Dom dynamics, blow jobs, orgasm denial, threesome

Pairing: Clyde x Fem!Reader x Craig

The sweet air of the votives swirls around the empty church. Empty except for the dim orange and red light that illuminates the book in the man's hand.

A woman at his feet, clothed in fine silks. A mix of reds and whites that twine together. Beautiful patterns of stars flow across the dress.

She dips her head in prayer alongside the man. The father of the church glides his fingers across her cheek as her mouth closes. Reciting scriptures of one's devotion for an unseen God. Everything in that moment was peaceful.

The warmth in the Father's eyes doesn't go unnoticed, the greens darken with a desire that he knows better than to have. It's difficult to hide the growing ache in his pants. More so when the woman's lips curl into a mischief smile, the warm glow of the candles makes them shine with an otherworldly glow. She looks up at him and her eyes fall deep into those pools of lust. Her hands break apart from that folded prayer and onto his black dress pants. They card up further against his thighs where they settle and clutch the material.

"Father, bless me...", a whisper that makes the Father groan.

Temptation never looked so sweet. This woman made his chest pound. Unholy thoughts flood his mind and go straight to his-

You let out a loud groan. Your forehead drops and hits the table beside your keyboard. The forgotten mug with now cold tea rattles.

Writer’s block, the very bane of any author’s existence. It's been haunting you for weeks now, making it impossible to get anything done. You've been stuck on this part of your romance novel the entire time. A part you were so excited to get to!

The buildup was perfect! You had calculated, plotted, and carefully crafted a budding romance between a witch and a holy man. A forbidden romance that took place within the walls of the church, the furthest outside the walls it went were the gardens that surrounded the area. The two fell in love after he saved her from the townsfolk claiming sanctuary.

Inspiration struck you like lightning after you fell in love with your partners. After publishing a sci-fi series, that honestly changed the name of how science fiction would be written forever, you met two fans at a book signing event. You had made a surprise appearance at a local library in some little town called South Park. Coming from the big city yourself, it was a huge surprise that anyone in the little town would actually be a fan of yours.

Apparently, you had quite a few. A man with bright red hair who had a black-haired man following alongside him. Both gushed about how the story inspired some kind of board game they played with their friends. A sweet blond woman who had the cutest southern accent you've ever heard. She gave you a piece of fan mail that had the most adorable sticker on it. Another black-haired man who dressed as Spock for some reason. He went on for a solid thirty minutes about a fanfic he wrote regarding the main character of your book and Star Trek's very own Captain Kirk.

Finally came the oddest duo you had ever met. The two were like day and night, a cat and a dog, fire and ice; the whole nine yards. A bright smile with baby brown eyes on one, and an ice-cold deadpan look with amber eyes to match on the other. At first you thought the brown-haired one was your fan and the man with the blue hat was just along for the ride.

"Haha! No way! I'm not into that..." He paused as if to stop himself from saying something he shouldn't, "...kinda stuff."

"That kind of stuff?" You repeat back at him, raising a brow.

"He means reading. He doesn't know how." The other spoke putting a hand on top of his head. With a little push he forced the brown-haired man's head down.

You giggled at that. The protests coming from the poor man was comical. You almost felt sorry for him, watching him struggle to move the taller man's hand off.

"Then I take it I'm signing this book out to you?" With a click of your pen, you look up at him.

The NASA jacket on the bright blue sleeves of his jacket should have given it away honestly. There's was a small tinge of a blush on his tan cheeks, almost hidden under the skin tone but you were able to make it out under the light. He looked away for a moment before nodding at you.

"Yeah."

"Name?"

"His name is Craig! He's a huge fan of yours by the way! So, if you could write something sweet for him that'd be awesome!" His friend chirped at you as he broke free from Craig's grip.

Craig's face twisted, those piercing eyes of his narrowed down. Before he could reach and grab him, the brown-haired man slid behind your chair. Putting his hand on your chair, he bent down to your level and tapped the blank white page.

"As you can see my big guy has a baaaaaad case of resting bitch face."

"Clyde..." the warning that slipped out of Craig's mouth made a shiver roll down your spine. It was even directed at you, and you felt threatened.

"So, you gotta imagine my surprise when he came home smiling! I was shocked! He didn't even smile when we started going out!" Clyde ignored him, an attest to his bravery. Or foolishness. Either way he continued, leaning down next to your ear. "Your book made him so happy, so it makes me happy. Think you could do that for me? Because he'll never ask you to do it for him."

You look up at him for a while, not even bothered that he had gotten closer to your face as he spoke. The browns in his eyes flickered with mischief but there were layers of love behind them. Chocolate that seemed to melt into tiny hearts when he spoke about Craig. It was honestly sweet, even if he was trying to tease his partner.

"How can I say no to that? I'd love to." You smiled at him and began writing on the empty page.

Yeah, who would have thought that fate would tie you to those two like that. Falling in love with Craig and Clyde was nothing like what they wrote in books or movies. It was a tornado of events that landed you in the eye of it all.

Despite their polar opposite personalities and looks, the two worked off each other well. Then when you got thrown in the middle, you filled in a little spot they desperately needed.

Clyde was social enough for the three of you. He was the one who reminded you and Craig that you needed to get out of the house. When you lock yourself away in your office, he would drag you out with a fun date idea. Movie nights, football games, arcade dates, and his favorite late-night walks. Doing the same to Craig who always seemed buried in work.

Craig gave off such scary dog privilege that you and Clyde never felt threatened. You could take those late-night walks with Clyde because you knew nothing would touch you with Craig following close behind.

That was nice sure, but under that scary looking shell was a soft teddy bear of a man. While he wasn't vocal with affection like Clyde, he was observant. Craig remembered everything, everything about you and Clyde's interests. If he saw something you mentioned in passing it was yours. Clyde needed new shoelaces because the ones on his favorite pair of red shoes were tearing? There was a new pack waiting for him on the table. You complained about the shift key on your keyboard sticking too much? An adorable keyboard that looked like a typewriter was found on your desk the next morning.

Then there was you. You have no idea how these two survived this long without you. Truth be told they don't either. Craig and Clyde couldn't cook to save their lives. Their diet consisted of diner food and Chinese takeout. While their house was clean enough, laundry was never put away or folded. Clyde was horrible at putting his dirty laundry in the bin and Craig was too tired most nights to even make it to bed. The final straw was when you took a shower, and their only soap was 3 in 1.

Absolutely not.

So, when you moved in things changed. When Craig was at work, you would take Clyde grocery shopping. Slowly you started him on simple dishes, working with him until he was comfortable in the kitchen. What was surprising was that he took to it quickly. He was a natural and before you knew it, he was cooking things you had never heard of. He had gone as far as looking up Peruvian dishes, practicing with spices and techniques that had your mouth watering. When you asked how he learned to do all of this, he gave you the biggest grin and told you it was YouTube.

When Craig came home that night to Chupe de Camarones it was the closest to crying you've ever seen from him.

Clyde really stepped up after that, feeling a sense of pride in taking care of you two. Seeing as you worked just as hard as Craig did. Clyde proclaimed something about being more than happy to be a malewife.

In return Craig started taking better care of himself, actually starting to care about his health. He stopped staying up so late and made use of the giant bed. Clean sheets and blankets that felt good on his skin. Even better that you and Clyde would be in it waiting for him. Clyde long passed out on your chest, a bit of drool sliding down the side of his face and onto your shirt. Not that you seemed to care as you just continued to read next to the little bedside lamp. Only pausing when you felt Craig's presence in the doorway.

Craig's smiles were rare, little treats from the universe to you. Ones like these where he smiles with love in his eyes. Where he kicks off his shoes and strips down to his boxers, crawling into bed next to you. Arms wrapping around Clyde and with a hand settling on your hips. A silent squeeze lets you know it's time to put the book down and join him.

How can you say no to a smile like that?

Of course, not every day was perfect. Your relationship took time to hash out. It was different being with two individuals at the same time, but you made it work. The three of you were committed to one another.

Now if only you could commit to this fucking scene.

Your head’s little meet and greet with the table must have been louder than you thought because whatever Clyde was yelling about in the living room stopped. It was one of the rare weekends where Craig was home and off work. Choosing to spend it watching some show with Clyde, listening to the man ramble on about something.

So wrapped up in your thoughts, you let out a scream when you finally lift your head and Clyde is right there beside you. His body bent over just like the day you met him. With his hand on the back of your chair and his face next to yours. Except instead of using, you as a shield from Craig, he's reading your computer screen.

While he doesn't understand what it takes to be an author, he sees the effect it has on you. Days like this where you take on the posture of a shrimp, forgetting to come out to eat.

His lips start pursed, but as he continues to scan over the screen they break out into a smirk. He covers his mouth in a fake surprise, a gasp with widened eyes.

"Babe! This is...scandalous! Spicy, naughty even! What are you doing writing something like this?" His dramatic act continues, forming some feign surprise.

"What are you doing using words with more than one syllable?" You shoot back with a little smirk.

It takes everything in your power not to laugh at the actual pout on his face. Try as you might, the giggles escape your lips, and it makes him smirk. He leans down and nuzzles his nose into your cheek.

"Maybe you're starting to rub off on me babe! I'm getting smarterer with you around!" You know he said that word wrong on purpose, just to get under your skin.

But he kisses you quiet before you can say anything. Holds your face in his hands so you can't pull away. You can taste the cherry chapstick on his lips, and the growing smile along with it.

"So, what's got you bashing your head into your desk baby? Craig and I heard a thump and got worried." He moves the kisses towards your forehead.

"Was it that loud?"

"Heard it over the tv." Craig's voice almost makes you leap out of your skin.

You bite your lip, looking down at the keyboard with a distant stare. The faded green and blue, spots where your fingers had smudged away the paint from typing so much.

"I'm just having trouble with this scene. I've been stuck on it for weeks now." You exhale softly.

Craig raises a brow and leans down on the other side of you. Both Clyde and Craig bent over to take a look at your screen. You're not sure why the fact both men reading your unfinished work makes you feel nervous, but it does. Or maybe it's the fact this is your first time writing a spicy scene like this.

"It's good. Never would have thought you'd go the Priest kink route." Craig says it so matter of fact, there's never hesitation in his voice. You can count on one hand the number of times you've seen him flustered, and even then, his tone is flat.

"I-I’m not into it! I just- you guys are only reading a snippet of my book! There's been a romance blossoming between the two the whole time!" You try to defend yourself, but it only makes Clyde's lips tug into a smirk.

The temptation to tease you was too great, it was being handed to him on a silver platter. Clyde leans up and walks next to Craig, leaning into his chest. The man wraps his arms around himself and lets out a dramatic sigh.

"A forbidden love! A tale as old as time! But what I wanna know babe-" Clyde stops and lets the tension build. It makes you glare at him as you turn in your office chair. "-is why the witch's descriptions are reaaaally close to mine."

"That's a woman Clyde! She's got short brown hair because it was cut off when she was running from the townsfolk! Brown eyes are common and beautiful! There's not enough representation for them!"

"Aaaaaand her dimples?" He points to his, the little spots in his cheeks that sink in when he smiles. "Plus, my eyes are totally beautiful."

"It's not you!"

"Oh, and the Father isn't Craig. Tan skin, black hair? You gave the Father green eyes but other than that, it fits Craig to a T." Craig actually nods along with what Clyde is saying. He's got his eyes closed as if this is some kind of philosophical debate.

"Are you serious right now Clyde?! This is why you two aren't allowed in my study!" Your face was burning now, hot and flushed from his teasing.

"What did I do?" Craig breaks the little fight with a simple question.

"Nodding your head along! You know what he's doing and you're encouraging it!"

"So, you took inspiration from your partners in your romance story. It's cute." He responds with a shrug. He looks down at Clyde who's still smugly leaning against his chest.

Your mouth falls open, you go to respond but nothing makes its way out. Your brows furrow. Arms crossed under your chest in a pout.

Had you unintentionally based your characters off your partners? Is that why the romance novel was easy to write up until this point?

Whatever the case may be here, you didn't like being called out. So, you do what you always do when they get like this, you turn in your chair and ignore them.

Usually this works, let's them know that you're not in the mood for their games. That you'd rather be left alone than entertain another minute of their shenanigans. But this time Clyde wasn't going to let you go. He grabs the back of your seat and wheels you back towards him and Craig.

"Baaaaabe don't pout. Look I'm sorry~." No, he's not. "But hey I've got an idea."

You let out a little huff, enough to where he knows you're not actually mad at him. If you were you would have picked your chair up and walked it back to your desk. Instead, you sit there and wait for him to continue.

"You're stuck on that scene, but I think you need a break. Sitting here and bashing your head against the table isn't going to fix that. Soooo..." He trails off, moving to stand in front of you.

His fingers glide across the side of your face, cupping your cheek so gently. Clyde guides your face up to look at him, behind that cocky smile of his he's got such love for you in his eyes. The way his thumb brushes across your cheek, making your heart flutter so slightly.

"What do you say Craig and I help you out a little babe?" Clyde guides your face up towards him. He presses his thumb against your lips just as his voice dips into that playful whisper.

You raise a brow at him in response. It's not until Craig puts his hand on your shoulders, that you piece together this wasn't just his idea. Thumbs pressed into your muscles working out the knots and tension. For such a hard worker, somehow Craig's hands always stay so soft. The worn-out oversized t-shirt you stole does little against his hands. The material is thin from how often it's been washed and worn.

His hands pull a soft moan from you, it feels too good to keep yourself silent. Clyde pushes his thumb past your lips and into your mouth, the digit presses down on your soft pink tongue. He all but purrs when watches you wrap your lips around it.

"See...let's work out some of that tension. We'll make you feel real good and give you a little inspiration." Clyde hums as he pulls his thumb out, smearing the saliva across your lips.

When he doesn't continue, you realize he's waiting for your confirmation. Waiting for you to agree to their little plan. But that doesn't stop Craig from bending down and placing a kiss on your cheek. He trails the kisses down to your jawline, using his nose to nudge your head to the side. Lulling your head to the side, you gave into the feeling. Craig's lips move to capture the exposed skin. You can feel just how eager he is from the way the kisses turn to nips then to full on bites. His teeth sinking into the soft parts of your flesh pulling another sharp gasp from you.

"Come on honey. Let us take care of you." After he's done leaving small love bites on your neck, Craig moves to your ear nipping the shell.

"Y-yeah that sounds...that sounds good." You move your hands up towards Craig, running your fingers through his hair. One of the rare moments he's not sporting his blue hat. "I could use a little break..."

"That's our girl." Clyde's praise goes straight to your core. He lifts you up from your office chair, hands cupping the back of your thighs for support. They give your thighs a little squeeze, digging his fingertips into your flesh.

Craig moves out of his way and goes to push your office chair back towards your desk. Clyde chuckles softly seeing the confused look on your face. Instead of protesting you wrap your arms around the brunette lazily throwing your arms around his neck.

"We're supposed to be relaxing, we're gonna get nice and comfy on the couch." He drops you down on the couch, making you bounce a bit. He laughs when you let out a gasp of surprise.

"You ass." Your grumbles fall on deaf ears. Clyde just runs his fingers through your hair and gives it a harsh tug. It makes you cry out, craning your neck up towards him.

"Sweetheart, that's not very nice. You're being a brat right now." He tuts, feigning disappointment.

"You dropped me on the-" You suck in another cry when he tugs your head to the side, that firm grip on your roots sending a shiver down your spine.

"Hm? You were saying something? I did what?"

Clyde's smug little smirk made your blood boil. But his fingers in your hair felt too good to protest further. Especially when he switched between tugging and massaging his fingertips into your scalp. You watched his eyes flicker from yours to behind you. Before you could turn around to get a glimpse of what he was staring at, Craig's hands slid down your back.

Gently, much more than Clyde, he pushes you down towards Clyde. His other hand comes down to grab your ankle, pulling your leg back towards him. Once your knee is tucked against the couch, he does the same to the other leg.

If your face wasn't burning up before it certainly is now. Just as you go to hold yourself up with your hands, Clyde removes his hand from your hair and takes you by the wrist. Guiding you up towards him, he places them on the hems of his sweatpants. The grey university sweatpants do little to hide his hardening cock, you watch it twitch against the fabric.

"This is about where you left off right? She was about to take the Father's cock out of his pants?" Clyde says watching as you slowly pull his sweatpants down. He lets out a low chuckle that turns into a moan when you slip your fingers around his cock. "That's it, now keep your eyes on me baby."

There's a moment of hesitation as you bring the tip closer to your mouth. The bright red tip glides across your plump lips begging for you to open. His hand returns to your hair, smoothing down your locks from his earlier manhandling.

The gentle touch makes you look up towards him, just like he requested. There really was something so intimate about those chocolate brown eyes of his. Past that smirk and layers of darkened lust, there was devotion. The feeling of your hands on him alone made him weak in the knees. You put that to the test, pressing just a little kiss on the tip. Dabbing your tongue against his leaking member. Just from that alone he's letting out the prettiest moans.

"Sh-shit, c’mon don't tease me." That cocky attitude of his melts. You almost laugh at how easy it is to break him down. He was puddy in your hands.

With a little hum you move your hand up and down his shaft, creating enough friction to make him buck his hips towards you. He nudges his cock further into your mouth, pushing past your lips. The underside of his cock glides down against your tongue, smearing the pre-cum along with it.

So caught up in your little game, you almost forgot about Craig behind you. Almost. It's hard to forget him when he's got his hands all over you. Large palms cupping any exposed skin. Craig takes his time exploring every curve he can get ahold of. His nose nuzzled into the back of your head. His breath tickling the shell of your ear. Just the sight of your mouth around Clyde's member alone is enough to make him growl.

Neither men are patient when it comes to you. Craig shoves whatever is left of your pajamas down and off you, he doesn't bother with your shirt as it'll pull you away from your lover. Instead, he decides it'll make the perfect handle. He bunches it up until it collects at the collar. His hands grip the shirt and tug it backwards, making your hips rock back into him.

Somewhere along the way he stripped away his pants. The barrier between the both of you was the thin material of your underwear and his dark blue boxers. While Craig wasn't as vocal as Clyde was, with his teasing and little whimpers, he could be just as unfair if not more.

Grinding against your cunt slowly, grabbing and groping at your ass the entire time. He digs his nails into your skin, leaving little crescent moons. Craig rewards good behavior not with sweet words, but by giving you what you so desperately want.

He waits until you've got all of Clyde's cock in your mouth before he finally shoves your underwear down. It makes it to your knees before he just decides to leave them there. Too many times he got impatient and just ripped them off, and too many times you scolded him for it.

The hand in your hair pulls you back from his cock. Clyde moves your head back just enough to where only the tip remains, then slowly he brings you back down. Pushing you all the way down his length until your nose hits his stomach. You watch as his muscles flex under his skin like he's trying to resist letting his head lull back. He needs so badly to keep his eyes on yours, loving the attention you're giving him.

"Your mouth feels so good." He whines when he reaches the back of your throat. You gag around him, and it pulls another whimper from him.

Your hand slides down his thighs, using it to hold you up. The other hand is still being held by Clyde's grip. His hand wrapped around your wrist, holding it up near his shoulder. Craig waits until Clyde rocks you back again, using the momentum to slip inside your wet folds. A pleased hum rumbles from his chest. You can feel it from how he's pressing his entire body against yours.

Just as slowly as Clyde moves your head, Craig pushes further into your cunt. The two find a slow and steady rhythm with one another. When Craig snaps his hips against you, it pushes Clyde's cock further down your throat. Your moans vibrating around him causing him to moan loudly in return. Clyde's whimpers and whines get louder when you dig your nails into his thighs. In return the grip on your hair is tightened. Creating this delicious cycle of pleasure.

"Baby, please. I wanna fuck your throat. You gonna let me? I need it so bad, please." Clyde's begging spurs something in you. Gives you the feeling of control even if you’re physically stuck between the two. From the beads of sweat that trail down his body and the way his body is shaking, you know he's at his limit.

You're able to pull back just enough, his cock springs up with a little bounce. Craig slows down just enough to let you talk, but you can tell he's not happy about it. The way his grip on your shirt tightens, you're sure he'll rip it soon.

"If I snap my fingers, you stop, okay?" You say giving him the okay. He caresses your face and presses a kiss onto your face, letting you know he understands the boundaries you've set.

At first, he's careful when he pushes his cock back into your mouth. You reward him with a swirl of your tongue, rubbing against the veins that are popping out.

"He's so needy." Craig huffs as he leans back up. The assault on your neck stops, but he's left it covered in bright red and purple marks. No amount of makeup will cover up what he's done.

You don't need to see him to know that he's smirking at it. Taking pride in the fact that he's marked you up. Or the pride making Clyde blush from his comment. Craig's hips snap back into you, the force much sharper than his previous lazy thrusts. They're calculated, each time he pushes deep inside you he hits that spot that has you seeing stars. Clyde's hips take up the same pace, shoving his cock into the back of your throat.

Tears begin to well up in your eyes, trickling down your cheeks. Moans turn to muffled cries, yet everything feels too good to stop. They're rough paced fucking brings your mind to a haze. All you can focus on is feeling good and making them feel good.

Craig's close, you can tell from the way he starts to lose rhythm. He's having a harder time controlling those grunts and growls. A hard time not leaving bruises on your skin from how rough he's holding onto you. He's long since let your shirt go, instead grabbing onto the back of the couch. But he waits until he feels that familiar clench around his cock. The way your walls clamp down around him as you cum. The only warning being the high-pitched muffled moan that gets swallowed by Clyde.

His hips slam into you one more time before he pulls out. Grabbing the base of his cock, he shoots that hot thick load onto your back. Heavy amounts of cum drip down your spine making you whine and shiver. Clyde can't take his eyes off the way his partner paints your backside. It makes a trail of drool slip down his chin.

The poor man can't do it anymore, he can't stop his eyes from rolling up to the back of his head. Not when your moans vibrate up him and your throat tightens from choking on him. He needs this release.

"I'm gonna cum baby. Please, let me cum. Let me cum in your mouth." Clyde all but cries in between panting. His begging dissolves into your name and the word please over and over again.

His flickering eyes catch yours again. It's when you give him a little wink and a hum, his cock violently twitches and cum spills from his tip. His cum is sweeter than normal, it makes it easier to swallow.

Slowly he pulls out of your mouth with one final whimper. It isn't until Craig swipes his thumb over his cheek that you realize he had tears streaming down them. Clyde presses his cheek into Craig's hand and lets out a pleased sigh. Once he knows Clyde is okay, Craig stands up and goes to get a towel to help clean your back. He does the same to your face, swiping away the left-over tears.

"Feeling better?" Clyde asks as he helps pull your underwear up. "Nice and relaxed?"

You nod and rest your head against his chest. "You've got good ideas sometimes."

"I've got wrinkles on my brain." He smirks to himself, taking your little praise miles.

Craig comes back after tossing the towel in the dirty laundry with a large blanket. He throws it over both of you before climbing in next to you. He lays his head down on Clyde's and grabs the tv remote.

"Kitchen Nightmare or Hell’s Kitchen?"

"Kitchen Nightmares! I need some petty British accents after my orgasm denial!"

You scrunch up your nose at Clyde’s comment. Almost wanting to pull back. "Smooth brain behavior."

"Smooth brain behavior." Craig chimes in.

The three of you relax into the couch, almost ready for the group nap that comes with the afterglow of love making. That is until inspiration strikes you again. Your eyes light up and you go to wiggle out of their hold. But Craig's arms are faster, they keep you firm against his chest. Clyde's hands come down a moment later, cupping your hips.

"Nope. You're staying right here."

"Guys! No! I just figured out how I'm gonna get that chapter finished! You gotta let me go! I gotta do it!" Your pleads are wasted, like they're not even heard.

"No. You're warm and I'm tired."

"That's not my fault or my problem."

"I'm making it your problem. Sit still."

"You know Tucker bear isn't going to let go. You're fighting a losing battle babe." Craig at least has the decency to let Clyde finish before pinching him. You know Clyde's nickname for him makes him grumpy. His little yelp makes you giggle.

"Fine....at least until you fall asleep."

"Look if you think you can get out of his hold, then be my guest. You earned it at that point." Clyde's smirk returns. He throws his leg over yours and tucks it in between Craig's knees.

"Fuck you." Your eyes narrow up at him. He's not as slick as he thinks he is, trying to cage you in with a sleepy Craig.

"Again? So soon. You're insatiable babe. Let us recover first." Clyde presses a kiss into the top of your head, pulling back before you can headbutt him.

His hand guides your head back down onto his chest and he just chuckles. It doesn't take long before Craig is passed out with his head nuzzled into the curve of your waist. Holding you like a teddy bear against his chest. Clyde's smile grows when he sees you trying to fight off sleep. But it eventually takes you and you lose the battle. He turns the tv down just a bit, deciding to join the both of you.

That chapter can wait another day.

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elljayvee · 6 days ago

Text

I loved the pace of this, the quiet and the different sorts of passages (echoing the halls of the Enterprise).

youtube

The thing that I've been struck by is how many people see this as K/S going canon, and I...no more canon than it already was? I'm second wave, really, having come into the fandom just as it really launched into the online era rather than the zine era. A lot of slash fans at that time considered Kirk canonically bisexual and K/S very near canon, both for the same reason: The Footnote in Roddenberry's novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (this is what the hand-holding in Unification is calling back to).

This wasn't a wild or out-there point of view. It was much more controversial and underground in 1980, when Judith Gran's essay The Footnote: An Explication de Texte was first published, but when it appeared online in 1997, the slash audience (still frequently distinct from other audiences to a degree I think that people today might be surprised by) was largely ready for it.

The Footnote itself does a few notable things:

1. defines the Vulcan word "t'hy'la" in a particular way that justifies the rest of the footnote to exist. Why would you even do this? There is no reason to do this if you don't mean to imply that K/S is a possibility or even a probability.

2. Jim Kirk admits to having sex with basically every gender and species he can think of. Again. Why. This is so unnecessary unless the intent is to establish that he is emphatically Not Straight. (Also, it's the 1970s when this is written. A character like Jim Kirk stating that homosexuality was unobjectionable was a much bigger deal than doing it today would be. It's actually a little hard to explain how much of a bigger deal it was.)

3. Whatever the fuck else is going on in there it's the shadiest non-denial denials of all time.

Add in the lovely post-V'Ger "this simple feeling" hand-holding in the film and you have....something from the late 70s that's at least as canonically explicit, if not more, than Unification.

I'm not complaining about Unification, mind. I love it. I love the ending it gave them. I love the space it gives for their relationship to breathe, at the end.

I'm just saying.

It was already this canon. It's been this canon for 45 years.

#star trek #unification #Youtube

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ape-apocalypse · 10 months ago

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Road To The Kingdom - My Planet Of The Apes Retrospective

With the hype for Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes on the rise, I decided to do a bit of a deep dive into the trilogy of reboot movies starring the incredible Andy Serkis and the various tie-in titles.

Why ramble on about a series that most people seem to overlook? Well, I think back to an interaction I had here on Tumblr in 2017, just one week before War For The Planet Of The Apes came out. While scrolling through the POTA tags, I found a post that wondered if anyone was actually excited for the new film or if the studio hadn't gotten the message and was making it for an audience that didn't exist. I responded that I was genuinely excited for the new film, that I loved the motion capture apes and the action scenes and the surprisingly engaging story, and would be seeing it opening weekend. The other person seemed surprised by my honest answer and apologized for their snarkiness (a truly shocking turn of events in the history of the Internet!).

I explained that I'd gone into these films thinking of them like Jurassic World series; I wasn't there for a great story and deep writing, I just wanted to see dinosaurs destroy things. So when I went into the POTA films, just expecting to see fun action movies with monkey chaos and apocalyptic results, I was surprised that I was swept up in the characters and their stories. I loved seeing the life of Caesar from tiny carefree baby to resilient revolutionary to fearsome leader, and the lives of all the humans and apes around him. The other poster said they hadn't actually seen the movies, just expected them to be shallow cash-grabs on reboot nostalgia, but they might have to reconsider giving them a shot after my enthusiastic response.

So if I can sway the minds of anyone who has written off these films, more movie tickets sold might mean more films and other media told in this ape apocalypse world!

And even if you already know and love the films, I also want to give some love to tie-in materials. Books, comics, YouTube shorts, video games; POTA has a surprisingly large catalog of bonus material for a series not considered mainstream like Marvel or Lord Of The Rings or Star Trek. I don't see them get many mentions in the fandom so hope a little spotlight on them can help them shine. They have delicious tidbits of world-building and character backstory, filling in gaps between the movies. I already have my fingers crossed there will be some tie-in material covering some of the huge time jump between War and Kingdom. With three hundred years passing between them, there is so much to learn about the ever growing and changing ape societies. I'm eager for any scrap of info they'll share!

But really, even if nothing I write changes anyone's mind about this franchise, it's still fun to gush about one of my favorite fictional universes.

My brief history with POTA was that I didn't know much about the original films before going into the new Andy Serkis trilogy. I'd heard enough about the original film to know the main beats of the first movie (quotes like 'damn dirty ape', the reveal of the planet being Earth with the Statue of Liberty). I saw the Tim Burton film which didn't leave any kind of impression other than the incredibly realistic costumes/make-up, so much so that I was apprehensive of the CG apes. Since getting into the new films, I've started watching the originals and may cover those just for fun.

So whether you're a long-time die hard fan or a fresh face to Caesar's legacy, I hope you'll enjoy my thoughts on the Planet of the Apes franchise!

Links to all my posts as they are released:

- Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes Film

- Prelude and Contagion Comics

- Motherboard YouTube Shorts

- Firestorm Tie-In Novel

- Fall Of Man Comics

- Dawn Tie-In Comic

- Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes Film

- Revelations Tie-In Novel

- Last Frontier Video Game

- Crisis Video Game

- When Worlds Collide Comics

- War For The Planet Of The Apes Film

- War Tie-In Comic

- Caesar's Story Novel

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electronickingdomfox · 7 months ago

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"Ishmael" review

Novel from 1985, by Barbara Hambly. A pretty great read, it's actually a crossover between Star Trek and a Western show from the 60's: Here Come the Brides. However, you don't need to have watched the other show to understand the novel, since the characters and their relationships are properly developed, and no previous knowledge is assumed.

The plot follows an amnesiac Spock waking up in 1860's Seattle (the setting of Here Come the Brides), and learning to navigate among the people there, all the while hiding the fact he's an alien (which is one of the few things that Spock remembers about himself). He takes the identity of "Ishmael", the nephew of local businessman Aaron Stemple. Funnily enough, Stemple was played by Mark Lenard (Sarek in Star Trek), which may have given the author the idea to combine both shows. Interspersed with Spock's chapters in Seattle, there are chapters focused on the "present", with Kirk and McCoy trying to figure out what happened to the Vulcan. I ended up finding those chapters a bit more interesting, since the reader is as much in the dark about the mystery as Kirk. But it was also nice to see Spock adapting to the townspeople, and being more human and emotional, given how little he remembers about his Vulcan education. Besides, this serves to confront Spock's values against those of XIX century America (addressing subjects such as the sexism and racism of the era).

I can't judge how well portrayed are the Brides' characters, not having seen the show myself, but they're all lively and easy to warm up to. As for the Enterprise regulars, they're fine, and in particular the portrait of Spock as a rootless, lonely stranger, carving his own place among those humans, is pretty moving.

On another note, it's curious how this is the first novel to involve time-travelling to Earth's past, considering it was a recurring theme in TOS (which even had its own Western episode!). And there are also parallelisms with the later movie The Voyage Home, where a somehow amnesiac Spock also visits San Francisco, though at a much later date. Apart from this, Spock's unofficial family name: "S'chn T'gai", is first introduced here.

To summarize, this is an intriguing story, that also manages to be quite poignant at times. Though there's still no cowboy Bones...

Spoilers under the cut:

During shore leave at Starbase 12, built in the vicinity of the Tau Eridani Cloud, Spock notices some unusual dealings in a Klingon cargo ship, and he's authorized to conduct a solo infiltration mission aboard the transport. Time passes without Kirk receiving any news from Spock, and the Enterprise follows the cargo discreetly, once it leaves the starbase. Suddenly, the cargo starts accelerating inside the Cloud, which is rife with magnetic anomalies, and then it simply... vanishes. The only transmissions from Spock that they receive before he disappears, are a cryptic series of words and numbers: "White dwarf. Khlaru. Tillman's Factor. Guardian. 1867."

The story moves then to 1860's Seattle, where Aaron Stemple finds a badly injured and unconscious Spock in the forest. He recognizes immediately that Spock's an alien, given his green blood and strange ears, and understands he's been tortured and will die if left alone. Not without misgivings, Aaron decides to take the alien to his cabin in the woods. There he takes care of him, until Spock recovers, and is surprised to find out that the alien can speak English. Spock, however, can't remember anything about his past or identity, though from time to time he gets impressions from his previous life, that he can't pinpoint. The only other person who is aware of the alien's existence is Lottie, the local saloon owner, but she keeps the secret. Back in the saloon, Lottie notices two foreigners asking a hell lot of questions (the reader will identify them as Klingons at once), but she doesn't mention it to Aaron, despite her suspicions.

Back in the starbase, Kirk, McCoy and Maria Kellogg (the starbase commander), try to make sense out of Spock's transmissions. The mention of a "Guardian" is taken as a reference to the Guardian of Forever, and implies the Klingons are trying to tamper with the timeline. This is supported by the mentions of a "white dwarf" and "Tillman's factor", which describe a method to open a time warp. After some discussion, they also determine that 1867 must be a date... but from what calendar? As for "Khlaru", it could refer to a Klingon historian that was researching at the starbase. Khlaru's colleague, the Vulcan historian Trau, tells them a bit about their research. They were studying ancient Karsid records; a civilization that used to subtly infiltrate other societies through economic deals, before annexing them to their empire. The Klingons were part of that empire, until the rebellion that gave them independence (which is a very unusual backstory for the Klingons). However, Trau fails to see any connection between Karsid history and the Klingon's current plans.

Meanwhile, Spock is adapting to Seattle's society. He lets his hair grow to cover his ears, and passes as Aaron's nephew Ishmael, working for him as accountant at the mill. The general situation in the town is also explained. The Bolt brothers (Jason, Jeremy and Joshua) had brought several women from the East Coast to marry local workers. Aaron has placed a bet with Jason: if he fails to get all the women married by the end of this year, the Bolt's mountain property will pass to Aaron's hands. Ishmael (I'm going to refer to Spock as such, since that's the name used for most of the story) shows his super-human abilities when he's able to locate Jeremy and his fiancée Candy, lost in the forest, by hearing alone. However, Aaron manages to dispel any suspicions about his "nephew". Ishmael's acute hearing also comes in handy to save Aaron's life during a trip to San Francisco, where two men assault Aaron in the street. During this trip, Joshua meets Sarah, a doctor who faces discrimination for being a woman trying to work in the medical field. This is something that Ishmael can't understand; and he's constantly worried about slipping up, and showing traits unusual for a human in this era. The San Francisco bay also stirs something in his memory; Ishmael is certain of having seen that landscape in other time and shape, but whenever he tries to recover those memories, he feels intense pain around his temples (and if you know your Klingons, you'll probably guess by now that they used a Mind-Sifter on Spock).

For his part, Kirk consults with an engineer in the starbase, Aurelia Steiner (a curious alien that looks like a blob of gelatin, and shows her emotions through variations in her color and perfume). She devises a means for the Enterprise to create a time warp like that of the Klingons. At this point, they're certain that 1867 is a date from Earth's Christian calendar. And after Klingons try to kill Trau, and destroy the Karsid records, the historian concludes that there must be some relation with Khlaru's research. Effectively, they find out that the Karsid tried to infiltrate Earth around that date. However, they were stopped because a representative from Washington, Aaron Stemple, showed an unusual hostility and suspicion towards them. The Karsid abandoned their attempts, and soon thereafter, the Klingon rebellion put an end to them. Kirk and co. suspect the Klingons will try to kill Aaron before he enters local politics, so the Karsid succeed in their invasion and the Federation never comes to be. There's still the question, though, of why Aaron was so convinced that the Karsid were aliens (given how good were their disguises), since humans of that era wouldn't have reached that conclusion easily.

Back in 1867, Ishmael accompanies the Bolt brothers to San Francisco, in a gambling quest to earn $50.000 at the casinos. Aaron had promised Jason that he'd forget about the bet in exchange of that sum of money. Jason was likely to lose the bet, as nobody wanted to marry one of the girls, Biddy Cloom, who is considered loud and unattractive. Aaron and Ishmael, however, had grown fond of the girl, and deep down, Aaron doesn't want Jason to marry her just to win a bet, since he's developed feelings for Biddy. The Bolt brothers start making money at the casinos using Ishmael's mathematical system. And again, the two foreigners from the saloon show up there. Meanwhile, Joshua meets with Sarah and proposes to her, but he disappears before going out on a date with her. They find Joshua a while later, apparently drugged and with marks around his temples similar to those of Ishmael. He also suffers from a minor memory loss. In the end, Jason fucks up when he abandons Ishmael's system to win money more quickly, and ends up losing all their cash (and this whole passage, with Jason's winning streak surrounded by impending doom, was pretty exciting). So they return to Seattle empty-handed.

A bit later, during Jeremy's wedding with Candy, Aaron finally asks Biddy to marry him (even if this means that Jason will win the bet and keep the mountain), and Biddy agrees, as she also loves him. Sarah also comes from San Francisco to accept Joshua's proposal. However, Aaron receives a sudden call from the mill, and leaves the party alone. Ishmael notices two men following him, and recognizes them as Klingons. This brings back all his memories (and from this point onwards, the novel refers to him again as "Spock", to signify the change). Spock follows Aaron, but he arrives too late, and finds him gravely wounded by a disruptor blast. The Klingons take Spock for a common human, and not wanting to disrupt history further, they leave, confident that Aaron will die anyway.

Spock and Sarah try to keep Aaron alive during the following days, but with their primitive medicine, there's not much they can do for him. Fortunately, Kirk and McCoy arrive in the cabin just then, having finally pinpointed the correct time and place. They take Aaron to the Enterprise for proper treatment. And Spock has a tender farewell scene with Biddy, where he promises to bring Aaron back in a few days, even if Spock himself will never see her again. Aaron is healed and brought back to Seattle, with the Enterprise returning to its proper time. As it turns out, it was the Klingons' interference precisely, what thwarted their own plans. By sending Spock to that time and place, Aaron became familiar enough with aliens, to resist against the Karsid later. The novel ends with a nice touch, as Kirk consults Spock's family records, and discovers that one of Amanda's surnames is... Stemple.

Spirk Meter: 6/10*. Kirk becomes very depressed after Spock is lost in the Cloud, having recurring nightmares and being unable to sleep. To the point that he hopes that Spock was already dead, to not suffer anymore. It qualifies as McSpirk too, because McCoy is shown to be similarly depressed, and turning to heavy drinking. At the end, both Kirk and McCoy stare open-mouthed at Spock being so affectionate with Biddy (of course, it's not romantic affection... but they don't know that yet, and it's easy to read it as jealousy). Besides this, there are many mentions of Spock being unable to appreciate feminine beauty, and he takes his inability to ever marry a woman as a matter of fact.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

#star trek tos #star trek novels #novel review #k/s #spirk #mcspirk

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onwhatcaptain · 6 months ago

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hi i didn’t know what Star Trek was until i came across your fic it’s so. Real. poor McCoy bruh nobody’s gonna know what he went through …I guess it’s not entirely gone, but still. He didn’t get the three socks metaphor.

YOU TRICKED ME. canon divergent LIEEE LIEEEE

The way you omit time travel as a tag is craaazyy (I love time travel) AND AND THE SUNMARY BEING

“About men who love each other” LIKE NOT TWO MEN but all THREE

I do have one question though. If McCoy said “tell him you missed him” and set up the holo night, then in the first timeline had McCoy already gone back at that point and failed?

Hi! So I saw your comment on AO3 (please forgive me if it takes a moment to reply, I have an enormous backlog of comments to get around to after I took a break when the fic ended!) and I knew I absolutely had to ask you these burning questions: how did you find my fic if you didn't know what Star Trek was? What inspired you to read it?

I am beyond thrilled that you enjoyed the story and so touched that you read it all the way through without having seen Star Trek, but I absolutely have to ask what the story behind this is if you're willing to share with me!

It's definitely still canon divergent in a sort of way! At least in my figurative and literal book if you know the episode that inspired this novel, it would definitely be considered divergent:) I wanted to keep things as spoiler-free as possible to retain the surprise and emotional weight of the story, so I made the decision early on to not tag where the plot or ending was going, which definitely threw a lot of people off! Sorry for the trickery!

I ADORE that you pointed out the summary. I was actually shocked when I was reading this ask, because it was absolutely intentional and a huge part of the foreshadowing, but you're the only reader to my knowledge that has consciously noticed that choice, and you haven't even seen Star Trek!! Amazing!! I have such a big smile on my face right now!

More below because I realize this is getting long already!

As for poor McCoy, it is truly tragic nobody will know what he went through. In Star Trek, a lot of fans (rightfully) emphasize the love between Kirk and Spock, which I feel is only kept alive because of McCoy's quiet love for them both in the background as he takes care of them. In a way, it's a tribute to love that goes unnoticed, unseen.

With regards to your question, it's a great question! And I don't have a perfect answer for it, because it's entirely paradoxical. The first half of the story can only happen if the second half happens, because Kirk and Spock would not act on their feelings without the existence of the holo night and McCoy's intervention. But in the original timeline, they still die even though McCoy's actions in the latter half of the novel seem to exist. It's totally circular. It's expounded on somewhat in Forever and a Day, where McCoy tries to make sense of the same question and concludes that even if he does succeed, they will still die.

McCoy tries not to think about the horrifying implications. The knowledge that no matter what he did, he could not undo their deaths. To live, they would always need to die.

This doesn't necessarily mean that McCoy has gone back before, but it raise some serious questions about metaphysics and leaves a lot unanswered, because the two events now cause each other, and they also contradict each other. I actually took a stab at explaining the metaphysics in way greater detail in the fic originally, but my beta reader (correctly) told me this would confuse readers. So because it's confusing, I later just wave my sci-fi authorial wand to try and convince you to go along with it! :)

"And I like how the paradox makes no sense.” “I reckon it’s not meant to. They never do."

I do have to say, I recommend giving Star Trek a watch if you were interested! I think it's an amazing show. Again, thank you so much for taking the time to read a whole novel about a show you had no idea about!!

#thank you for this ask!!!#asks #star trek #star trek tos #spirk #kirk x spock

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mandatory-blog-stop-asking · 9 months ago

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Moriarty (TNG) as good AI Art

I got to Star Trek The Next Generation season 2's Elementary, Dear Data in my rewatch and I couldn't help but notice how the holodeck actually nicely represents the current state of AI art in its process to create Moriarty.

At first, Data and Geordi ask for a "Sherlock Holmes mystery", so the holodeck simply provides one, verbatim -- Data has obviously already read it, and so he immediately solves it. Geordi is furious and leaves immediately, because Geordi doesn't have great characterization in the show proper, and lives in our heads as a better character.

But the point Georgi tries to make eventually is that this isn't a "real" mystery if Data already knows it, and it goes kind of unspoken that the Holodeck didn't create anything new, it just regurgitated what it has without any remixing or any real reason to go through it again.

Then Pulaski gets involved and tries to prove Data can't really do anything novel -- they ask the Holodeck for an original mystery "in the Holmesian style", and what does it do? It just copies and pastes different portions of Sherlock Holmes novels into the same document, and makes it a "new mystery", while still clearly being just a hackjob made in a hurry with no sense of aesthetics or direction.

While it might have been enough for Geordi or Pulaski, Data is a machine that can recognize patterns much better, and he immediately understands that this is just a combination of patterns he already knows, and once again he immediately solves it because he knows the original mysteries. But this time, Pulaski points out: this is a fraud! This is not what a real story is like! Holmes would never do this, he would actually think about the novel stimuli reaching his brain!

And I think it's really interesting how Data, a fellow machine, cannot immediately tell what Pulaski is saying. Because for Data, aesthetic don't actually make that much sense, at least not in season 2. He can't tell a good story from a bad one made out of different pages of different stories, because for him, it's all about patterns. Just like the Holodeck, Data does think this is good enough, and confronts her about it. I mean, what else is the Holodeck supposed to do other than recombine what already exists?

It's not until Geordi stops asking the computer to make a story and instead asks for the computer to make a character that the plot actually moves forward, because at that point they're dealing with emerging narratives that arise from the fact that Moriarty is now a hyper-intelligent AI that is free to do its own plans, regardless of what Sherlock Holmes story he's from. While Moriarty may be a repetitive character, his new reactions are not, and that's good enough that it becomes a massive problem that threatens the safety of the ship.

Before, when it was being asked to make derivative art, the Holodeck performed exactly to task -- but the result only really worked on people who either 1) did not understand art at a deeper level than the superficial, and 2) did not know the original art that well. The art that it spat out was valid, it was working, it was logically sound and fit together more or less well enough.

Pulaski, however, immediately understood that this result was inferior to the sum of its parts. She respects the character of Sherlock Holmes; she goes on a little explanation about the character's relationship to the human soul and how that's the actual point of the books, as opposed to just the simple puzzle boxes that Data (and, to some extent, the Holodeck) seems to believe they are.

And I just think that's just a poignant take that easily translates to the current state of art and artificial intelligence -- there is actually no value in derivative AI art that simply copies and pastes parts of other pieces of art into one straight line, regardless if it's an image or a story or anything like that. Yes, you can get some praise from people who either don't care or aren't familiar with the originals, but people who are actually into the art form -- the ones who have proven they are invested and are ostensibly the ones you're trying to catch as a steady audience -- will recognize and be bored by the result. There's no rhyme or reason to how a machine adapts a story into another, there's no aesthetic sense that makes it interesting to the human psyche. It's just a fast food version of art that doesn't really do anything for you, and you'll forget it in five minutes. Pulaski is not offended by the attempt, she's positively amused that an AI tried its hardest to make a Sherlock Holmes story, one of the most by-the-books and predictable mystery formats known to British literature, and the best it could do was just copy what's already there.

But when it's just a collection of ideas and vague directions that then go forward on their own, that's different. Moriarty is not an AI creation of the Holodeck -- he was given a push and then allowed to go wherever he wanted. He was not even a proper villain by the end of it; the combination of things Moriarty was resulted in a curious, driven, machiavelic yet ultimately sympathetic man, who just wanted to continue living and creating his own, original story, not based on anyone else's. The Holodeck's greatest achievement wasn't making an original story, it was making someone capable of doing that on their own, without having to refer to anything else.

There are entire Youtube channels right now that make a lot of bank by using these emerging language models to help them tell a story -- DougDoug has dozens of videos of him and his chat going on wild adventures aided by text AI that doesn't actually write a story for them, but instead simply provides direction for them to make their own decisions and their own stories. It's a genuine way to improvise and give the onus of planning to something else, especially when the story isn't the point, but the experience is -- just like the Holodeck!

I'm not saying AI art is eventually going to reach that point by itself, but I do think there's something to be said about just hitting random on a trope generator that gives you, the author, different ideas so you can write a story yourself; or even just rolling the die to see what happens to your characters as opposed to painstakingly arranging your story like a hand-made garden.

Star Trek constantly showcases characters like Data, Moriarty, The Doctor or Zora as more than the sum of their parts, and it's always because they are able to be more than simple reorganization of previously experienced stimuli. They are able to make choices that don't have to happen, but that they want to happen.

Don't get me wrong -- AI Art, as an institution, is corrosive acid and will kill entire industries. But the fact we skipped straight into the hellish capitalist version of that means we never got to fucking play with it. We never got to just use it as a stepping stone or something to unclog the sink when you have writer's block. Instead of going in random adventures with a Moriarty who can actually react and develop something akin to a character, we're getting a thousand offers to buy books that are just combinations of different novels on Amazon, with no way to really filter them out other than our own eyes.

I just wanted to hang out with Moriarty.

#star trek #star trek tng #star trek the next generation #data #geordi la forge #pulaski #james moriarty #art #writing

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septembriseur · 4 months ago

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Tagged by @aintgonnatakethis

About me

When did you start writing?

Not sure. At the age of ~9 I started writing a terrible epic fantasy novel that basically recapitulated the Terry Brooks and David Eddings series that I was obsessed with at that point. There is (regrettably) evidence of this because my family had a printer that I made copious use of. I started writing X-Files and Star Trek fic before I knew it was something that other people did, around age 11.

Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?

I basically exclusively read crime novels and fic because the sf/f and literary fiction that I encounter is so unappealing almost without exception. And actually I read very little fic because almost all the fic I encounter these days is terrible. I am constantly starving for non-terrible fiction. (Please feel free to recommend some.)

Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?

I've always been obsessed with Hilary Mantel's prose and used to rip her off often in my sentence structures. But I don't know that there's anyone I look at and think, "I wish I could do that." In terms of fic, Kat Allison was a big influence on me— I read her fic when I was probably 13 or 14 years old and was first starting to develop real ideas about writing, like, "What is this story doing?" Also a Highlander fic called "Heat Goes to Cold," which appears to no longer be on the internet but which introduced fourteen-year-old me to Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, which I still have a great fondness for even though I have (kicking and screaming) outgrown it.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Right now my biggest problem is that I don't have a writing space and mostly write in coffee shops. My apartment is full of intrusive objects like a work-from-home husband and multiple no-work-from-anywhere rescue dogs, which interfere with thinking. I've just set up (using a room divider) a new attempt at a bedroom office, which is an IKEA table covered in heaps of agates and fossils and ephemera, so we’ll see how that goes.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and/or places you write about?

Not so much the place I grew up as other places I've lived. I tend to put people in landscapes that I know well and be meticulous in details, which is partly just because I have almost no visual imagination. Northern New Mexico and London are probably the landscapes I feel I know most deeply and find most productive. Thinking about this, it actually seems to be because in both cases my knowledge of the place is very specific and idiosyncratic. My physical knowledge of New Mexico is very linked to nuclear history and fossil hunting, which creates unusual routes and focus. My physical knowledge of London is very linked to mudlarking— the river, the terrain and transit around the river, the material history of the city— and to punk rock, which heavily shaped my husband’s London and therefore (through him) mine.

Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so, do they surprise you?

It's been discussed to death.

Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

I think that I'm less interested in specific characters than I am in the potential for characters to be interpreted in unexpected ways. The more generic a fic is in characterization, the less readable I find it. Marvel and (especially) Stargate characters are great for this because there’s so little to them on the page— they exist as a potential for readings, especially critical readings. I see less and less of this in fandom, sadly.

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

Truthfully, I would probably have an easier time being friends with my characters than I do with people in real life. When I look at the characters I write about, they seem to all be veterans, refugees, would-be revolutionaries, and/or people who have had really extreme and unusual experiences that make them outliers. That also describes an awful lot of people I know in real life.

Which characters would you dislike the most of you met them?

Probably Transposition Chloe Armstrong, insofar as a lot of the details of her life are a gentle spoof of people I went to school with at various points.

Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?

I exclusively write about damaged people, pretty much. I guess also maybe see the last question here for more thoughts.

How do you picture your characters?

I have a very poor visual imagination, so I don't really. I have to find photo references, even for original characters. I’ve mentioned before that I have to look up floor plans online in order to figure out spaces in my stories.

My writing

What’s your reason for writing?

I'm good at it— ie I’m able to do what I want to do with it. I'm probably better at it than anything else I do— there are other hobbies I've given up (music) because I know that I will never be as good at them as I want to be. With writing, I feel that I am capable of being good enough.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating?

I probably prefer more neutral comments that engage with the subject matter in depth. I like talking about my stories as a fan rather than an author, I guess. I have a hard time with praise.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Probably my mercilessness in terms of both characters and prose. Secondarily (and relatedly), my intolerance of generic phrasing. If nothing else, I am determined to describe things in a new way.

Have you been told is your greatest strength as a writer is by others?

Its strangeness/unexpectedness. But this has mostly come up in the context of my old original fiction, which is not very good and mostly written to pay bills.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Satisfied— generally. Circa 2019, I’d been writing so much that I really felt like I had an incredible level of technical control over my prose. However, I also had a very shallow understanding of the world and a lack of moral imagination. 2021 onwards really marked the beginning of me developing as a person, ie having a quiet breakdown and having to reconstitute myself. Unfortunately, 2021 also marked the severe limitation of my free time. Now I feel that I am able to write with more insight, but I'm still working on getting back to the same point of skill in my writing.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

Given what I write, it's pretty clear that I mainly write for myself. I think I write to solve arguments for myself— to resolve tension between ideas or principles; to reconcile parts of my character; to understand how to live in the world. That last thing sounds really elevated and pretentious, but I mean it in a pretty down-to-earth way. The last three years completely stripped away what I thought I understood about how to be a person and left me seeking some truth about how a person is supposed to live, day-to-day, in a world that is characterized by such profound injustice. I think that’s the kind of truth that can’t be arrived at except through fiction, because it’s not logical— it has to reconcile fundamentally paradoxical ideas. Is it stupid to suggest that writing, like, pornographic sex scenes is a way of dealing with that? Maybe! But in fact that’s the way I experience it: that everything I write, however silly and trivial, is always also toying with these questions about power and humanity and being in the world, because it can't not be. (And I think that there's probably something really "late settler liberal" about the idea that it's possible to separate the two things— that on the one hand there's entertainment, which is free of these questions, and on the other hand there's real life.)

#writing meme

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maya-the-skaven · 1 year ago

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Much Ado About Rats: A Skaven Story

Greetings everyone and welcome to the very first of my series of posts that will follow as I write my fanfiction about Skaven in the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar setting. While my fanfiction is something rather private and will probably go through a long and thorough process of writing, editing, proofreading and even rewriting before I am comfortable publishing it, I would still like to talk about its worldbuilding, its characters and my personal headcanon on all matters Skaven.

It's easy to consider Skaven as just cannon fodder for the good guys of the setting, nothing but a mass of hungry and inherently if not comically evil vermin that exist only to multiply, destroy and die, not too dissimilar from the Tyranids of the 40k setting. They represent all the worst traits both on individual and societal level and, more importantly, they're not human and kind of ugly and monstrous, you'd get weird looks if you told anyone you empathise with them, similar to reactions you'd get from the common audience if you said you feel nothing but pity for the orcs of the Lord of the Rings setting.

However, to me the Skaven are much like the Imperium of the 40k - they are independent individuals trapped in and molded by from their very birth to their rather short death by a highly institutionalized and hierarchical society with ruthless inner politics, warlordism and a merciless system of economics and labour. The Skaven who are not ready to do everything in their power to survive and chase the power are either destined for death or slavery. They fanatically worship a god that doesn't care that much for his children if not bestows constant malice onto them, but any deviation from that worship is tightly controlled by a tyranical sect of wizard-priests. The Skaven either conquer, ruthlessly exploiting their surroundings until their utter desolation, or stagnate forced to literally cannibalize each other to survive. They are essentially trapped in a vicious circle where the society forms natural selection where the most power-hungry, cruel and vicious individuals win and these individuals, in turn, do all in their power so that this society stays that way, with them in power and their subordinates in various forms of slavery. I don't know about you, but most of the above doesn't sound to me that different from average life of an Imperial citizen in a Hive World. Moreover, isn't that also what happened in real world many times? How the ultra-rich of today stay in power, how Nazis brainwashed the entirety of Germany into genocide and complete ruin, how medieval tyrants and their aristocrat countries held entire countries in serfdom, how USSR bureaucrats reproduced their own power by what amounted to negative selection?

The main difference between Imperium and the Skaven is that, while the Imperium also exists in a constant flux of decay, misery, exploitation and treachery, it still gets many stories about individuals that manage to represent better aspects of being human, in spite of their culture, their upbringing, their status. Skaven, however, are for some reason excluded from humanity and human stories, despite having the same sapience and free will as humans do, they almost never get any stories that center them and everywhere else they are just there to do something horrible (and sometimes funny) and then be defeated by the heroes of the story. Despite this, we got more intricate glimpses of Skaven in the Queek Headtaker novel, it turns out they can be loyal, they can have a conscience, they can be brave, they can reflect on the poor state of their species, they can actually care for each other for other reasons than power, however rare that is and however corrupted and abusive that care might be.

Skaven also make me reflect a lot about our own world. In a way they are kind of like Ferengi from Star Trek series, their culture on one hand seems completely alien from ours, but on the other hand it has direct connection to our culture because it is a huge exaggeration of it. We exist, function and prop up systems that cause suffering, we compete even if that means that someone else will go hungry, we punch down our most marginalised and miserable, we entrap people into economic system where the line must go always up propped by extremely underpaid labour or everyone will be scrounging for food, we exploit and destroy our environment without care for neither other living creatures nor even other humans, our current cultural mindset is thoroughly hierarchical and power-seeking with even those critical our the current state of things rarely escaping from it. It's easy to sneer at the Skaven as the utterly evil "monster" species of the setting, but they are only doing what we are doing, but dispensing with our dislike of grotesque, with our flimsy morals and with our ever so cautious self-preservation instinct. But in our world we have many stories of people prevailing despite tyranny, misery, poverty, people going to great lengths to help each other, people protesting and fighting injustice, even if their mind was still polluted by bigotry, cruelty or selfishness. If Rom from DS9 can unionize in spite of his entire species and culture, why not give a chance at better characterisation and characters for Skaven that doesn't revolve around being comically evil? Something akin to Queek's bravery and care for Ska, even if completely insane and abusive by our standards, Ska's unquestioning loyalty, Gnawdwell's refined composure and genuine pride for Queek, Sharpwit's recognition of Skaven being doomed to be trapped in their vicious cycle and never learning from any mistakes.

Source: https://twitter.com/nan_ivel/status/1460612547887910914

My motivation for writing a fanfic about Skaven is thus motivated by this unfair treatment of simultaneously portraying the Skaven as sapient and free willed individuals completely capable of forming a society woes many traits and woes of our own and other similar societies in fiction, while they are always treated as non-persons, never get any kind of diversity despite numbering trillions and stories about them that delve deeper into their psyche are practically non-existent. My story will be focused on a band of Skaven finding their own ways and detaching their personalities from the society that made them what they are, it's an escape story, a story of change, a story of experiencing and feelings things you could never put a name to. This is not necessarily a story about redemption, bad guys becoming good, the Skaven being goodie-two-shoes, it's much more about a seed of hope that exists even for cruelest and vilest of beings to change in whatever way, it's humanising Skaven in a way how our own evil is deeply human and it's about negating the idea of evil being ontological and immutable for sapient persons of free will.

The fact that there are trillions of Skaven and tens of thousands of clans should be, on the contrary, taken as a reason for the fans and creators to experiment with imagining diverse environments, individuals, sub-cultures of the Skaven society, sprawling like a tumour, growing in every which way. Similarly the fact that there is not really a lot of actual established lore about the Skaven and either very old bits that can be easily considered not even close to canon, short paragraphs that describe the trope of Skaven, but rarely go into any nuance or expand on them or things that could be very easily supplemented by additional lore, rather than be contradicted.

For example, what is the true nature of Great Horned Rat, is he even a real god of Chaos, as his aspects, domains and character seems to change all the time? Or maybe he is the truest of them, since even his nature changes chaotically, usually following the constant dynamic flux Skaven as a whole find themselves in? What is the relationship of Skaven with gender? Are breeders just an irrelevant lore tidbit that could be disregarded, or maybe it could be expanded, for example, how clans that don't have the means to purchase Moulder monstrocities operate? What of cloned Skaven? How is Skaven biology influenced by their constant misuse of warpstone, permanent overexertion, starvation and lack of sleep? Are we to believe Black Hunger isn't a psychological reaction that a half-starved sleepless human couldn't experience? A lore purist could disregard all these questions, but they'll end up without a backbone to their faction and barely anything interesting to write or ponder, apart from them being just mindless characterless beasts of ruin.

Next posts will answer these questions and go more into detail about some of my personal headcanon that informs my fic, such as diversity and function of Skaven society, their biology and its relationship with warpstone and exertion, their reproductive cycle, basic details of Blight City are the protagonists come from and what Great Horned Rat represents in essence. But, of course, that’s just my interpretation.

#skaven #warhammer fantasy #age of sigmar #fanfiction #warhammer

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mixelation · 1 year ago

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i don't consume a lot of sci-fi on my own, but my family likes to, and my sibling in particular likes to send me sci-fi biology to rate it. here's how i like sci-fi biology:

consulted an actual expert (and then listened) - very rare, but very fun. star trek on good days* does this. futurama often combines this one with the next one for very fun results

intentionally completely stupid - love it, don't take take yourself seriously <3

handwave-y - this is less common in "hard" sci-fi for some reason (i think because the assumption is a reader WANTS an explanation?), even though it's really the best narrative way to do it. it's not your job to come up with how someone evolves telepathy or how it works on a biochemical level

flubbed the landing - used a real biological concept and then proceeded to demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of it. an example would be some novel where the main character explained that squids can evolve faster than other species because they do a lot of RNA splicing.** it's true! they do do that! also: not how evolution works! this one annoys me less because the writer made a mistake and more when a lot of the reader chatter is swooning over how ~smart~ it is fdhsjkhdjsk

unintentionally completely stupid - says a lot of biology jargon to say absolutely nothing, but takes itself very seriously. (grips star wars by the shoulders) stop trying to use actual science. you are a fantasy story set in space. go back to the wizards

*"good days" = good science days. i don't consume enough star trek to evaluate if it also correlated with good STORY days

**RNA splicing = okay so you're probably aware dna -> rna -> protein. well, you can hack up the rna into different configurations so that one chunk of dna can then make multiple types of proteins. (rna can also have functions beyond just being a protein blue print because rna exists to make a biologist's life Hard)

#these are just my personal preferences it's fine if you like different things #there are biologists out there who probably like different things #my sibling is a gd aerospace person and they don't seem bothered by bad scifi at all for example

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stra-tek · 11 months ago

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The TV shows and movies: Everyone has seen them, they're the canon, everyone knows about it, it's all good. Even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff. Even the episodes and movies everyone hates.

The novels and comics: 2% of the viewing audience have read them. They probably happened between episodes, but they're never ever referred to on TV (except that ONE time on Voyager). Vetted thoroughly (well, since Killing Time at least) and approved by people involved in the show prior to publishing.

The fanfic: These adventures are so numerous and secret, not even the people involved in the show knows about them (erm... with the exceptions of Spirk and Garashir, which have been referenced in Lower Decks and the Lower Decks mobile game. And Ni'Var being named for a poem in an ancient fanfic. And T'Khut. And possibly Una but maybe that's coincidence because after all Una = One). Literally anything can and does happen. Did they happen? Who knows? Who cares? They sometimes get to have sex. Gay sex.

The fan films: Non-canon adventures where the uniforms don't fit so well, sometimes featuring some of the actual Trek actors so not very secret at all. Probably happened in alternate universes with inferior Starfleet tailoring.

The fan manuals: Often more detailed and thoroughly researched than the official ones. Deck by deck plans of starships, instructions on what buttons do what on the bridge and extremely exhaustive backstories for starships only mentioned in passing in official technical books. The people in charge know they exist and shut loads down in the 90's for trying to make money off the Star Trek name. Did they all happen? So long as you don't try to actually compare walking routes on the shows to the floorplans of the Enterprise.

The fan art: At a con Mark Leonard (Sarek) once saw a naughty 'zine illo of naked, chained up Spock. Denise Crosby has been sent Data/Tasha naughty art. People involved in the shows sometimes see it, and are often bewildered by it. Oh, and IDW kept accidently tracing fan art of starships in their comic books because I think they just use Google image search. Did they happen? Yes. Especially the naughty ones.

The A.I. art: endless shitposts of your favourite characters doing anything your caffeine addled, sleep-deprived brain can come up with. Spock taking down the Christmas tree? Kirk cleaning the gutter? Picard having a replicator/soup catastrophe? Riker defeating John Cena at Wrestlemania? Janeway making ends meet by posing for naughty magazines in her Academy days? The people involved in the shows probably actively wish it didn't exist (at least until they find a way to monetise it). Did they happen? Well it's kinda like that time Barclay made out with a holographic copy of Troi...

#star trek #star trek books #star trek comics #star trek fan films #star trek fan art #star trek fan fiction #star trek canon

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thegeminisage · 6 months ago

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sigh it is star trek update time. last night we. sigh. watched voy's "heroes and demons" and "cathexis."

heroes and demons:

this episode made us look up how many holodeck episodes there are in voy vs the other shows. i guess i shouldn't be surprised that voy has the most considering it has a main character who IS a holoperson - it's also got the most borg episodes, and seven's only in it for four seasons. still, disheartening, especially considering how much i LIKE the doctor.

this episode DID have a couple of moments. the doctor picking and then discarding a name, him getting to see trees and a sky, and of course him getting smooched. it's great for him! i just wish it hadn't been buried in the dumbest holodeck shenanigan possible. there are surely creative ways to let the doctor get some screentime and see trees without resorting to vikings. vikings, which is exactly what i tuned in to star trek to see.

side note, poor harry. this shit is always happening to harry kim.

the existence of the holodeck in general continues to plague me. firstly, we have seen in voy and ds9 that holo-people are alive. like, they're real. so i can't get over things like that detective asking if his home was still gonna be there after the holodeck shut off, or trapping the fake moriarty in a simulation, or sex slave deanna (barclay die challenge). it's especially jarring, in a show with the doctor, who is alive, to have these holodeck characters running around as though they're less alive than he is. like at the end of this ep after the doctor said the last time his name was spoken it was painful, so he's gonna pick a new one, and janeway is like well it sounds like you had quite the adventure! like, girl, this isn't a character in a novel that died. she is a real ass person!!

furthermore all the CONSTANT safety issues of the holodeck - we quite literally only seem to get an episode about it when something breaks, because otherwise it's too boring to write about. so it's just this piece of tech that's always broken and endangering the crew and they don't have MECHANICS or REPLACEMENTS out there. like, yes, holodeck good to distract them from their predicament or take them back to earth, but HOLODECK BAD IN GENERAL

this will continue to be a struggle for future me, i'm sure - trek can never seem to decide where it wants to land with this holodeck shit.

cathexis:

to be honest, i feel like it wasn't possible for me to give this one a fair chance. we had the one-two punch of holodeck/racism after having JUST finished a holodeck ep and even though i probably would have really liked the other parts of this episode in different circumstances i was just not able to recover very well. i maybe could have suspended my disbelief for one or the other, but not fucking both.

like, we opened with a holodeck novel, which was perhaps the worst possible sin - again, i did not sign up for this to watch some p&p/sound of music mashup. i wanna watch space people doing space shit. and since they did two time travel eps in a row i was TERRIFIED they were gonna do two holodeck eps in a row and totally checked out. like, we were playing chess while this ran

then janeway got called away for plot stuff and i started listening again, only to be IMMEDIATELY met with the medicine wheel. and like, look. i don't pretend to be an expert on native american culture. but i just have the sneaking suspicion that the medicine wheel as presented in star trek voyager was not wholly accurate to any type of medicine wheel used in real life.

actually, the sad part about chakotay's whole deal is, if they do accidentally somehow do something with his culture that IS good and authentic most people would still not know it and assume it was bullshit fed to them by that hack. i probably would.

that said the concept of this episode was good and fun. i love chakotay's brain getting stolen out of his head like he's spock. i also love a good body-hopping ghost. OH YEAH AND IT WAS A GHOST. JUST LIKE JACK THE RIPPER IN TOS. IT WAS CHAKOTAY'S GHOST. i said this about 1000 times during the episode and was met with total SKEPTICISM but i was RIGHT. it was his ghost telling them not to go into that freaky ass nebula

possessed tuvok my best friend. i really wish i'd been able to enjoy this episode...i don't think a rewatch would hit the same since i already know the plot twists, but i just was not in the headspace to meet it. but it was fun watching his feathers get ruffled and watching him get into fights.

the standoff between tuvok and janeway was SOOO fun. harry literally had a choice to make and he did a great job. you could tell he was sweating bullets though. i mean who wouldn't be.

i did like janeway touching chakotay's shoulder and her Very Big Smile when he woke up and was fine. idk how into that i may or may not be but i think almost any two people on this cast could get it as long as one of them wasn't tom paris.

speaking of. tom paris was sooo rude to the doctor in this ep i hope he dies

TONIGHT: ds9's "improbable cause" and "the die is cast." i was tricked into reading the summary for the latter and i'm going to be in anticipatory AGONYYY until we finally watch it. THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

#personal #star trek blogging #voy lb

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tnc-n3cl · 4 months ago

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Did I send you an ask for this yet? You might have 2 from me I've been sending them all over. A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed. H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)? M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Thanks for the ask @unmaskedcardinal! (This is the only one from you, though Tumblr does say that I have four other unaccounted for items in my inbox but they're not showing up. Been like that for a while actually...)

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

Hm... Revalink and Midlink I reckon. Midna is (and likely always will be) my favorite LoZ character, and her arc was really good and her and Link's chemistry was good so yeah pretty much the first OTP for me I guess (Outside of maybe Picard/Crusher). Revalink was something that I had no idea even existed but once I started reading some fics, I was like "okay, I get it now."

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

I'm not sure that I prefer any of them over the others really. I watch several TV shows/movies/anime that I enjoy but don't feel the need to engage with the fanbase. Anymore at least, I used to be on a Star Trek & Scifi forum but it shutdown back when season 2 of Discovery came on (by that time there were maybe only like 5 people that were any kind of active) and I haven't felt the need to seek out a new place (or even lurk on any of the other sites I visited). Partly because I'm actually super behind on Star Trek at the moment, and also cause of how hard it can be to find a chill Trek group...

I uh... haven't read a non-textbook since the early 2000's, part of David Brin's Uplift Universe (I do like the scifi novels having more freedom to do super weird aliens. Since they don't have to worry about special effects budgets/CGI limitations or fitting people in costumes and whatnot.)

I like the interactive aspect of video games, and I've got quite a few "what if I could make the next game in X series ideas" so maybe a slight preference for games. Then again I did write a Star Trek and a Stargate fanfic...

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Oh man that's really tough lol! Kass would probably be a good friend, though he's probably super busy with the rainbow fledglings and all...

Send me some letters!

#answered asks #ask game #unmaskedcardinal #tnc-n3cl rambles #thanks for the ask!

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electronickingdomfox · 6 months ago

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"Crisis on Centaurus" review

Novel from 1986, by Brad Ferguson. This one has a very "80's American action movie" feel. From the terrorist attack on a country incidentally called "New America", to the incursion into the Pentagon (I mean, the "Centaurus Defense Center"), up to the obligatory car chase (only that they're flying cars). There are also plenty of references to American brands, that supposedly would have survived into the 23rd century. Though the constant mention of money seems a bit weird (I thought money was a thing from the past in Star Trek? Might be wrong, though). Also, the terrorists are racists that want to see their country free of alien influences (and it's made abundantly clear that for them, "alien influences" include also any non-white human). It's a fast-paced novel, and keeps the reader's attention at all times, though I don't think there's much more to it than that.

The cover would suggest that Joanna McCoy plays a big role in the story. In reality, she appears very, very little, the same as her father. The other characters, however, get a fair amount of exposure, including Uhura (who gets the con for a large part of the story), Scotty (who's given an even more Scottish engineer partner), Chekov (with his own mini-romance subplot) and Sulu. As it's usual with many of these novels, Kirk seemed to me a bit off. At times, he's more Bruce Willis than Kirk here. And I have difficulty imagining him as a land-owner who's been investing in the Centaurian countryside all these years (if the movies had shown anything at this point, it's that Kirk's heart was never on land). Anyway, I don't know why getting Kirk right is so hard, while Spock and McCoy are usually fine; it might be due to the subtleties of Kirk's character. Another noteworthy thing, is that this novel often presents the thoughts of the characters, to a greater degree than other books.

Spoilers under the cut:

The first chapter already sets things into motion at a breakneck pace. A suspicious guy is waiting in the New Athens spaceport (a city of New America, in the planet Centaurus). When two policemen recognize him as a certain Holtzman, he gets arrested, and in a panic, he activates a minuscule piece of antimatter inside the box... A microsecond later, New Athens doesn't exist anymore, being replaced by a giant, smoldering crater.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise is having problems of its own. The computers have been completely fucked up, and nobody knows why: there's no air circulation, no temperature regulation, no artificial gravity, nothing... The scene of everybody floating around, while Sulu's scalding shower water floats through the corridors as a giant ball, is actually pretty funny. Scotty and his new partner, MacPherson, manage to reestablish some sense of order, but the ship is seriously crippled. Repairs will have to wait, though, since Starfleet orders the Enterprise to assist in the Centaurus crisis. There's been at least a million deaths in the explosion; possibly among them several relatives of the crew, including McCoy's daughter: Joanna. However, the tachyon cloud released by the antimatter explosion has made all subspace communications impossible, so Centaurus is isolated. For his part, Spock investigates the computer malfunction, and finds out a mysterious hole that has pierced several computer banks at exactly the same point; however, he can't make heads or tails of it.

Upon approaching Centaurus, they discover that other relief ships in orbit have been reduced to debris. And a transmission through conventional radio (the only radio that can penetrate the tachyon cloud) warns the Enterprise not to approach. Sure enough, the ship is attacked by a nuclear missile from Centaurus. It seems the Defense Center has gone crazy after the explosion, and now launches missiles at any approaching ship, friend or foe. Fortunately, the Defense computers consider the Enterprise anihillated after the first strike, so they don't continue the attack. Kirk leaves in a shuttle with Sulu, to meet with the new government at the temporary capital of McIverton. While Spock leaves with Chekov in another shuttle, to investigate the Defense Center and deactivate the missile system.

There's a brief interlude, that presents some suspicious guys (led by this Barclay dude) hiding at a safe house. It's obvious they're related to the terrorist attack, and Barclay instructs some of his goons to meet with a certain person, and force him to cooperate.

In McIverton, Kirk meets with the new president, the Minister of Defense, and the Minister of Internal Security (Nathaniel Burke). The president explains that the terrorist attack was done by a racist political group, led by the scientist Holtzman, to get more power for his group.

At the Defense Center, Spock is unable to reprogram the computer to differentiate between friendly and hostile ships. So he's like "well, let's blow up this bazillion missiles in the sun and problem solved!" (and yeah, this is totally in-character for Spock; the guy is that crazy sometimes). Thus, Spock expands the defense area of the computer to include Alpha Centauri, the computer interprets the sun as a hostile element, and launches all the remaining missiles at it. Poof! After solving this problem, Spock takes the shuttle to the northern area of New Athens, where there have been some survivors. A makeshift hospital has been established in a park, and there they find Joanna working as a nurse, safe and sound. There's a moving reunion between her and McCoy, who stays behind to help the injured. While Spock's shuttle makes trips to the Enterprise to bring medical supplies.

At McIverton, Kirk is visited at his hotel by the lawyer Samuel Cogley (from the episode Court Martial). Cogley explains that he was approached by Barclay to defend them at a Federation trial, and not on Centaurus (which has a death penalty for terrorism). And Kirk, despite not having the slightest sympathy for the criminals, considers that the matter belongs in a Federation court and vows to fulfill his duty. However, that same morning, Sulu appears drugged in bed, and the hotel surrounded by Burke's men. The Minister isn't going to let the terrorists off the hook, since he lost his family in the explosion. Kirk, Sulu and Cogley make a frantic escape in a flying car (well, not so frantic for Sulu, who's still sleeping like a log). They retrieve Barclay and his men, and take refuge in Kirk's cabin in Garrovick Valley (a beautiful, secluded forest area that Kirk bought a long time ago).

In the final part, Kirk and his companions barricade themselves inside the cabin, surrounded by Burke's troops. Until the Enterprise, having received a faint distress signal from the cabin, comes to the rescue... by entering the godamn atmosphere!! (didn't I say earlier that Spock's totally nuts?). Cogley decides to just bring the terrorists to the Federation, but not represent them, when it's made obvious that they were also involved in Holtzman's attack. The rest of the antimatter bombs, that the terrorists kept as leverage, are also identified and deactivated. While New Athens is slowly reconstructed, by the joint effort of the locals and new relief ships from all over the Federation.

As for the strange holes in the Enterprise computer banks... Spock ends up concluding that they were caused by a minuscule black hole, which existed just for a fraction of second, and the Enterprise traversed at warp speed. Does it mean that, at any time, at any place, a mini-black hole could appear out of nowhere and just pierce you like that!? That's the stuff of nightmares, really...

Spirk Meter: 5/10*. Kirk wants to show Spock his "special, secret place" (no! not THAT!, I mean his valley at Centaurus). Kirk considers that Spock would appreciate its aesthetic beauty, and invites him to stay there with him as long as he wants. Spock is also a bit hurt because Kirk didn't tell him about the valley earlier. Actually, the rating could be a bit higher, considering that the cabin is said to have just a twin bed, and a massage bed for two. Apart from this, Kirk notices things about Spock that nobody else seems to see (like Spock swallowing nervously sometimes). The two of them interact very little in the novel, though, since they take separate paths.

Some Spones too. When Spock meets Joanna, he finds her strikingly similar to McCoy and... magnificient. He thinks of her as a "softer McCoy, pretty without glamour", which says a little about how he sees the doctor himself. Also, when McCoy is in emotional turmoil upon learning that Joanna is alive, after so many days of uncertainty, Spock says to himself: "I know that feeling well, Doctor. Draw strength from me, if you need it." (only that McCoy has no telepathy so... how is he going to hear that!?).

And then there's the McKirk. A flashback chapter presents a young Ensign Kirk recovering from a wound at a starbase hospital. There he first meets this kind Dr. McCoy, who helps him through the painful months of recovery. After Kirk is healed, McCoy invites him to stay with him at Centaurus, where his daughter lives with some relatives. And McCoy brings Jim to these beautiful woods and wilderness areas, just the two of them and Joanna, and well... you know. It's even more evident, because McCoy is relieved upon seeing that Joanna approves of Jim (seems like the little girl was troublesome with most of her daddy's dates). Too bad for poor McCoy, that Kirk ends up inviting a pretty nurse (and then Spock) to his cabin, and not him...

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

#star trek tos #star trek novels #novel review #spirk #k/s #spones #mckirk

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