trek is evil and destroying my life

I am going to bed, I swear. This fic will not hold me hostage. Nor sharing glorious memories of my viewing experience of Alexander.

[Next time I am at a con, I am totally organizing a viewing party for those unfortunate enough to have missed the glory and the dream. This movie is not to be missed. It sets the standard for sheer WTFery. It has growling! And Haephastion's magically thickening eyeliner!]

Okay, I know this exists, because someone, somewhere, at some point, posted a link to this: does anyone rememeber seeing (and can give me a link to!) a site that is devoted to characters of color in Star Trek?

I remember seeing it and I remember thinking--as one does--I should save that link! And then something was shiny. I don't remember anything else about it, and I could swear I clicked on it at the time but that could be a dream sequence.

For reference, I got this link from liviapenn: The Women of TOS. In case anyone out there is like me and once saw a link and then lost it forever to the wilds of the internetz.



I get to complain. This fic is 81K and I'm still not near the ending. This is partially the fact that I like plot, and in Trek, plot is my kink, seriously. Space battles, politics, Romulans, this is my thing! But it is mostly because I love plot, and I love domesticity, and I love established relationship fic, and apparently, I love exploring those things together.

This is a weakness; most fandoms, I can control the urge to try to do all of this at once. The thing is, this is Trek, which was my first fandom and my first fanfic and where I became a writer. So Trek kind of makes me ambitious. Or mostly, it just makes me want to indulge myself. So you know, taking a left turn and spending some time exploring the domestic situation of Ambassador Spock seems like fun! Two romantic subplots with no relevance to the main plotline? Whee! And when I ask myself, so why not devote a section to educational opportunities aboard the Enterprise, I have no answer that isn't "YES THIS". Which is how this happened.

[A lot of things I write that get out of my control start with "Oh, that seems like fun!" I never learn.]

I will stop complaining when the insanity ends. I mean, my only hope is that I'll lose interest in Reboot, and you know what, it's August, and that's not happening.



Also, this, since if you read me complain, you deserve something nice to compensate.



Since it's about a week until they get back to Earth, Jim announces an interdepartmental chess death match, triple elimination, to avoid homicide by boredom hitting them in a perfectly running ship with nothing more interesting to do than diagnostics. While it doesn't end in death, per se, it's more fun to say that than interdepartmental chess play-for-shifts match. The losers fall on their timers afterward, leading to a rash of Sickbay visits and Bones glowering, which is possibly the best part.

As usual, Jim is still banned from competition, because apparently being mostly-married to a grand master means everyone thinks you will use your grand master partner to cheat.

T'Prina looks at him in bewilderment. "Why would they suspect that?"

"Because I cheat at poker," Jim says glumly as half the rec room hates each other silently over a chess board. "Which is a totally different thing, by the way. Everyone cheats at poker; it's practically a rule."

T'Prina nods her utter shock that he isn't in a Federation penal colony.

"To be fair," Jim says, because he does try, sometimes, "there might be some residual bitterness from the fact Spock wipes the floor with them every time. So blame Spock, really."

"That is the reason," Spock says, taking the chair beside him, "that I have excused myself from competition."

"It was getting discouraging to play for shifts against the person who made the shift schedule," Jim admits, pushing the plate of chess-themed snacks toward him, since eventually Spock will get them anyway and why fight it? Also, Jim just finds vegetables carved in the shape of a chessboard, complete with tiny, creepily accurate renditions of chess pieces, disturbing. "I'm officially judge, though, and it's a nice change of pace to be in charge and people actually listening. Speaking of--" Jim gets to his feet "--Mlk, you cannot *en passant** there, penalized one turn. I am instituting a minimum skills test to prove everyone knows the rules next time, I swear to God. I do not *care** if Denebian rules treat pawns like bishops after the tenth move, either, so don't even."

T'Prina picks up a decoratively checkered cookie for examination as Jim sits down again, feeling righteous in his power. "I see."

"It is late," Spock observes to the far wall, having cleared the plate with logical efficiency.

"I'm off duty until beta," Jim protests even as he stands up again, kind of wishing he'd at least saved a cookie. "T'Prina, I'm appointing you assistant judge; you're authorized to break their fingers if they cheat."

T'Prina looks at Spock for sanity, which Jim finds really insulting.

"He has not slept properly since we left the colony," Spock tells her, taking the dramatic step of actually taking Jim's elbow and *steering** him toward the door. "Do not break their fingers, Cadet."

"Yes, Commander," she says obediently, though Jim detects a hint of disappointment. "Good night, Captain, Commander."

"I've slept!" Jim protests as the door closes.

"Three point six hours in your ready room is not sufficient," Spock answers placidly, the bastard, and Jim watches the approaching turbolift in resignation. "I understand you take pleasure in your duties as judge--"

"Mostly I like to mock the ones who lose, really," Jim admits as they step inside and Spock gives the order for their deck. "If they won't let me play, they have to let me heckle."

"Possibly, but I am sure they will admit that I have a greater right to your undivided attention when not on duty."

Jim looks at him. "You were consulting with Sorin most of the day."

"I am not now." As they exit the turbolift, Spock doesn't let him go. Sounding thoughtful, like he does when diagnostics illogically fail, he adds, "Perhaps I am jealous."

"You aren't." Jim looks at Spock; there's no way to tell. "Are you?"

As the doors to their quarters open, Jim surveys the epic level of neatness that's been achieved and tries to remember the last time he was in here for more than a few minutes for other than hygiene-related purposes. A little guiltily, Jim makes his way in the general direction of the bathroom, noting the small changes. There's a rug that T'Sora and Spock had gotten at some point, what is probably the beginnings of a water sculpture in the corner (he and Spock are not creative; they'll have to get someone in here to program it properly), a new meditation stone, and a faint sense of developing domesticity that gives him a horrible flashback to leaving the name of that 'bot manufacturer with Rand.

"Are we boring? It's not even two. And I'm not even on duty!" Jim says, stripping off his uniform tunic and in the spirit of compromise putting it with the other laundry, leaving his boots in the closet with a faint feeling of accomplishment for doing his part for domestic tranquility. Coming back to the main room, Jim stops at the sight of the chess board set on a low table. "Wow. Let the good times roll."

Spock, already cross-legged by the table, continues methodically placing each chess piece. "I thought perhaps a game of chess would help you relax before we retire."

Sitting down, Jim tries to remember their last game. "We party like it's twenty-nine, ninety-nine, don't we? Who starts?"

"Orion rules," Spock answers. Faintly amused eyes look into Jim's briefly, then drag down his body before taking a leisurely journey back up; with a faint sense of horror, Jim realizes he's flushing. "The first move is determined by the person wearing the least amount of clothing at the beginning of the game."

Jim glances down at himself (no footwear, no socks, no tunic) and grins. "Strip chess? What's my forfeit?"

"I will name it when I win." Spock hasn't ever lost a game of Orion strip chess as far as Jim knows; of course, as far as he knows, Spock's only ever played it with him. "I believe it is your move, Jim."

Comments

[kernezelda]

*unapologetic squeeeeee*

Honestly, I haven't felt any need whatsoever to curb these impulses in the fic. It makes me happy to read on every level.

[nic_fics]

<\Lurk> Hi!

Just wanted to say, "educational opportunities aboard the Enterprise"
Is it wrong that I want to read this bit even more than the battles, the romance and the Romulans? *Loves on backstory*

And incidentally,

We party like it's twenty-nine, ninety-nine, don't we? *grins*

T'Prina nods her utter shock that he isn't in a Federation penal colony. You and the rest of us, T'Prina, you and the rest of us.

[japanimecrazed.livejournal.com]

Squeeee- snippet is awesome. I can only be delighted by your growing fic because tens of thousands more words like this are even more awesome.

[fizzerbass.livejournal.com]

Gah! I hate when that happens! When all of a sudden Post a new comment pops up so unexpectedly in front of my eyes when I was no where even close to being ready to stop reading. Effing rude, I tell ya.

And I will in no way, shape, or form try to restrain or otherwise curtail your impulses when it comes to this fic. To say I dream about it daily would not be an understatement. To say I'm already planning on locking myself in my room - kids and husband be damned - and reading it over and over and over again would not be stretching the truth in the slightest. If it pops up in my Inbox during my daily morning message check, I'm going to contract the quickest, most severe case of Denebian Slime Crabs or something equally hideously contageous so that my not going in to work that day would be considered hugely self-sacrificing and worthy of national public notice. This fic already owns my soul.

But, hey! Glad you're feling better! :)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Since you are following this fic, thought I'd tell you its done and went to beta, in case you didn't see. Er, final count will be about 105K or so. *waves weakly*

[fizzerbass.livejournal.com]

Big effing FUCK yes! (excuse my french) I actually saw this in one of your other posts on my friends page and SQUEEED loud enough to shatter glass. I was going to respond to that post with incoherent mutterings and drool-filled dribblings, but didn't want to appear too stalkerish. *glee*

Can. Not. Wait.

I think I'm looking forward to this fic more than the release of Star Trek on Tuesday. :) Thanks for letting me know it's almost ready! *pencils in two remaining vacation days on calendar*

[feanna.livejournal.com]

I don't actually write, but I have this per universe where I wanted to introduce this OC who's on Vulcan. It started out: OH she'll be beamed up and be pretty much out of it for the rest of the movie. Then, but wouldn't it be fun if she interacted whith ...? Then, but if Delta Vega is T'Khut wouldn't it be in danger from the black hole and wouldn't they stop by to evacuate Scotty and Keenser (and Spock Prime once the sensors pick him up). Then she could be there with them, hm that might also be a way to save Amamnda (don't ask how exactly, it gets pretty out there). Then, but where do I put the transwarp beaming? Hmm, what if travel time to Vulcan was days. (closer to previous travel times, but I googles warp speed and it's so over the place that there are cases to be made for Voyager being able to get backk in a few days and not 75 years, so the new movie didn't actually do THAT badly there, even if it still throws me every time when they need so little time to reach Vulcan from earth.) But then I would need to come up with a reason for why the ships were close to Vulcan/ how everybody got there etc.. I haven't actually though that part out, it gets much too complicated if I want to retain important things like the other ships that are destroyed.
All this is before where I was going to start originally and then there's the insane plot to bring Kirk Prime over and there should be Klingons and maybe Romulans at some point and I'll just stop now, but I wanted to express that I totally get how Trek fics grow a plot and a subplot and then more of those.

[feanna.livejournal.com]

I forgat: LOVE the excerpt, can't wait for more.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

YES THIS. Like that. And you suddenlyw ake up and realize what the hell just happened? with a faint hangover and want some aspirin. *NODNODNOD*

Thank you for the excerpt

[alessiana.livejournal.com]

Trek is not evil
Trek is escape
Trek is creation & therefore
Trek is life

Glad you are writing more Trek. I loved your last one. You weren't writing TOS before AOS were you? If so, I'd love to read it.

I also writing ff. It consumes me but that is a good thing. I'd post an excerpt only it would FREAK people out. Of course it would be under the pen name to my pen name but it would be very weird if people were able to figure out it was me. More people read me from outside LJ then from within in.

Scary

.

[jujuberry136.livejournal.com]

First off, I'd say I'm sorry this fic is giving you so much grief but from what I've read so far it's just SO AWESOME. And given that, if you keep going off on crazy and awesome tangents than that's just more for us to read- yay!

Secondly, T'Prina is so awesome :D I said this last time and I'll probably continue to say it, but she really is. This line? T'Prina nods her utter shock that he isn't in a Federation penal colony. Is pure genius and amazing :D

Thanks for the link :D

Best of luck with the fic that won't end!

Trek is the ur-fandom

[mustangsally78.livejournal.com]

Ergo, you are providing an important cultural service.

Yis, I know this is so because of my learnings.

I srsly cannot wait for the rest of this.

[azdaja-dafema.livejournal.com]

Alexander! Oh I remember that film. It's perfect drunken-discussion film material.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

YOU LEFT YOUR KING IN ASIA!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I TRIED TO EXPLAIN TO ZVI LAST NIGHT ABOUT THAT AND THE GROWLING. IT IS LIKE SOMETHING THAT MUST BE EXPERIENCED.

[devildoll.livejournal.com]

ALL I REMEMBER IS THAT I HAD TO USE MY INHALER.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I TOTES WARNED IT CAUSED ASTHMA ATTACKS.

Awesome fic is awesome

[(Anonymous)]

An 81K+ fic by Jenn; no, wait: make that an 81K+ *AOS* fic by Jenn - and you're worried we'll mind digressions?

Sweet pestolicious FSM!

In short: No.

(What you might do, though, is put the really digressive stuff in sidebars, or set them off TV style like teasers/tags. Not because we wouldn't be interested in reading 'em, but in order to not slow down or obfuscate the plot.)

There's some great AOS fic out there; there's some fabulous series AOS fic out there. But it's gonna be a hella long time til the next actual, y'know, *movie* and we need all the rich, dense-packed, plot-heavy, rich-in-context, milieu-building fic we can get until then.

OK?

OK, then.

(Oh, and you could, maybe, post chapters along the way, like you did back in the Somewhere I Have Never Traveled days, unless you're worried about crashing servers when we all come galloping over to check three times a day for updates.)

Er... that was me. Forgot to sign in.

[trienne-hovus.livejournal.com]

(Sometimes lj remembers who I am; sometimes it doesn't. This was one of the "doesn't" times.

[illariy.livejournal.com]

*pushes page down button frantically in hopes of magically making more story appear*

[raphaela667.livejournal.com]

I totally understand what you mean by fic that starts with 'wouldn't it be cool if...?' and then just escapes. However, when it happens to you it's awesome, when it happens to me I end up stalled for three weeks trying to figure out how I got from Jim's daddy issues to Spock in his lap at a bar.

In short: This is amazing, and the only reason I don't want you to keep writing more of it forever is then I wouldn't even get to read the whole thing, and then I'd probably cry.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

...spock in his lap in a bar?

*riveted* You have my undivided attention.

[raphaela667.livejournal.com]

Now if only Spock had any of Jim's... *wicked smile* (it is K/S... I don't think I know how to write other things, anymore :P)

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

Eeee!

[sleepwalkerfish.livejournal.com]

Oh, indulge all you want, the longer and plottier the fic, the better. \o/ Awesome.

[jamesinboots.livejournal.com]

I looooooooove lots of plot! Eeeeeeeeeee, I am so EXCITED for this fic! *clappy hands*

[unrund.livejournal.com]

breaking a long spell of silent stalkery to tell you:
SLEEP IS FOR THE DEAD AND THE WEAK. Write!
>_>

From the excerpts you have posted I may be a little bit in love with T'Prina <3

[windbringer1.livejournal.com]

ORION STRIP CHESS, YES.

God if the fic you were complaining about includes many things like this, digress all you want. My domesticity kink is huge like the Atlantic. I will simply subscribe to your newsletter and read with glee!

[cjandre.livejournal.com]

Trek IS plot - even normal people who write Trek get caught up in plot whether they want it or not. And let's face it - in your hands it's just going to be that much MORE plot.

So 81,000?

Not surprised.

Let me know if you need an extra beta to tag team with the ten or so you probably already have lined up! LOL

Are you generally feeling better?

I don't know if you saw my post about it, but I'm quite possibly moving to Tennessee this month. I should know for sure by the end of the week.

:-)

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

Trek does this. Have you seen Killa's Trek fic page? It can get EPIC.

[deadlychameleon.livejournal.com]

81k words, or 81k size? (Man, I feel like I'm pulling out the bedside ruler here, comparing fics by length)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

82K words.

[ladyvyola.livejournal.com]

This movie is not to be missed. It sets the standard for sheer WTFery.

Or as we like to call it around here, Alexander the Great Drama Queen of Hysteria.

Honest to god, what the hell were they thinking? I mean, what. the. hell? I almost want to get a good look at Stone and Farrell's thought processes, just to get some idea where they thought they were going with their um, let's call it artistic interpretation, shall we?

Then I back slowly away from the contagious crazy.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

They were high. I mean, ther'es no other explanation for most of it. High. And not in the good way either.

[rainey-creek.livejournal.com]

T'Prina is fabulous. The image of Spock quietly, efficiently and logically snarfing down a plate of chesspiece-shaped chess pieces. Orion strip chess. Kirk semi-sulking that he doesn't get to play in the chess death matches.

I am so enjoying the little tidbits of story you share with us, and I'm selfishly gleeful whenever you post that the story has grown again.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much! *glee*

[clancy-s.livejournal.com]

in Trek, plot is my kink

Hooray! Plot is my kink always, along with characterisation. Alas there's relatively few fics that off complete satisfaction.


I'll lose interest in Reboot

New Merlin soon (probably but not yet officially 19/9).

Hooray summore!

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!

MERLIN SQUEE!

[niccy07.livejournal.com]

I love how domestic they are. Watching Spock dragging Jim away so they can spend time together is cute. Not to mention you have their voices down perfectly and Jim's quirkiness and Spock's amused exasperation at it is great to read.

Sorry that the plot is being such a brat! Just so you know I appreciate your work. You are an awesome author.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Thanks very, very much! I'm very glad you enjoyed it!

[mangst.livejournal.com]

I love this. Reboot trek has rekindled my love for these characters, and your fic adds really delicious icing to the tasty, tasty cake.

[meine-liebe.livejournal.com]

OH GOD THEY HAVE ORION RULES STRIP CHESS

i think u just kill me ROTFL.

and i'm thanking u for killing me. their interactions are delicious and i like T'prina

and SPOCK. and Jim.

guh.

*ded yet again*

[margarks.livejournal.com]

yay! I love the way you write Spock and Kirk :) Nice snippet!

[muppetk.livejournal.com]

*grinning from ear-to-ear*

I have just lost hours to your reboot fics and I am a very happy camper for it. Am still giggling at 'mostly-married and have a cadet.' I also find it particularly interesting that the chain of command is a bit more ensemble in these fics than one would usually think of it.

I'm still kind of blown away by loving Trek again. This has got to be the first time I'm actively enjoying Kirk fic. (outside of a half-dozen of the TOS novels) Looking forward to seeing this fic complete! I'm enjoying the heck out of the adopted & slightly-bloodthirsty Cadet. Among other things. :)

[karraparis.livejournal.com]

I loved this part! Strip Chest as only the Orina could think of!

I have the podcast of You'll get there that leed me to download it and War Games on pdf. I spent the last two nights reading War Games. I have to say I only goy YGT because I have your SGA podfics. Now I'm glade I did. Someone needs to podcast War Games and I think yopu should delve more into this world or well really more ST Reboot. Savvic is still out there. I think it be cute to see them with her. Or how Did Wynona react to the Bonding and then Jim's fun with Orian slave ship adventure.

Well anyway can wew please have more!