Some kind of saviour

Oh, how I love the new Star Trek: The original series audiobooks narrated by Robert Petkoff! They seem to be releasing them fairly often; so much so that when I've finished one, my app recommends another one.

Robert Petkoff has a great, fairly neutral narration voice and does the character voices well (and doesn't overdo them!) including the more subtle ones like Sulu's.

Yes, reading a plain old book is good, but A) I have to sit or lie down to read. I can't exactly do housework or take walks while reading and those are two activities that are good for my well-being and B) audiobooks are a much more immersive experience for me than reading. I get to take part in a performance, and I like that!


These are the ones I've finished:

Agents of Influence by Dayton Ward

A spy thriller. Human Federations spies have been surgically altered to appear as Klingons and the Enterprise are sent to extract them. I thought this was fairly boring, but then again, I'm not a fan of spy thrillers. Someone who loves that genre might really like this book. The coolest part was Sulu piloting a shuttle through an asteroid field.


The Higher Frontier by Christopher L. Bennett. Almost a supernatural fantasy-drama, though it still fits within canon parameters. A group of blind, but telepathic Andorians are massacred. The Enterprise saves the survivors and it snowballs from there.

There's a very enlightened 1970's feel in this book. There is consciousness-raising and mentions of polyamory. Sulu is a single dad. (Yay, Demora.) Kirk admits to having had threesomes (and is adorably flustered.) There's also a tiny mention of the universe Discovery takes place in, which I think is a nice touch.

The most amazing scene is one where Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov discuss how displeased they are with the fictional tv holovid-series based on their lives. This is a scene taken straight from debates in the old fanzines, I'm sure! :-)


A Contest of Principles by Greg Cox

A straight-up action-adventure split into three parallel storylines. The Enterprise crew are acting as election observers (a thing that happens in the real world, kudos for accuracy.) McCoy is kidnapped. Spock and Chapel go on a mission to save him while Kirk is left to deal with the election.

I love McCoy, that's no secret, and he's at his best here, surly yet charming, trying to save himself but following his physician's oath at the same time.

Spock does some badass secret agent stuff, like meeting an informant in a sauna. There's another little Discovery-mention and a lesbian character, which is a complete non-event, as it should be.

This is my favorite book so far, and though it was obviously written before the 2020 US election, and probably not with any real nations in mind, the whole mission felt like something taken from real life.


Greg Cox has also written the book I'm listening to now, The Antares Maelstrom which is a gold-rush adventure story. I haven't gotten that far, but Sulu has his own separate storyline, which I always enjoy, and he has a romance with a woman I'm quite sure will be Demora's mother.


Honestly, don't produce any more shows/films/reboots. Just keep pumping out audiobooks, and I'm good to go.

So, I've been kind of spending my vacation feeling empty and bored.

2018 was a weird year for me, fandomwise. I spent all summer being sad and angry about Wayward Sisters not getting picked up, to the point where I was carrying around a lot of bitterness. Then I quit the fandom, deleted my Tumblr and stopped writing SPN fic. It gave me a perverse sense of relief, but I still felt empty inside.

Then back in late September, for what reason I don't remember now, I dove back into AOS. (I say AOS, because I had been on a Star Trek kick for a couple of years at this point, even to the point of joining a club, but it was all TV. TOS and Deep Space Nine and Voyager.)

I watched the movies and went on a fic-reading binge which was AMAZING. It was almost like I was on drugs. I had the will to live again!

I spent every waking hour I wasn't at work reading fic; I had been gone from the fandom for 8 years, and now I was home. HOME!

The high was so great that it carried me through the entire fall without a single episode of SAD. It wasn't just the fic that I was enjoying; I had been transported back through time to the summer of 2009 and the excitement and engagement I felt then. I read through the discussions on the kink meme and felt like it was happening in real time. Everything was new and the possibilities were endless!

At one work event in October I even felt what Kalliel has described many times about Supernatural; this full-body joy that the AOS exists! I was walking on clouds!


Then I started writing, and I'm extremely proud of my stories, but... The high is now gone. That's kind of a dicey thing to say for me; when I'm in a fandom I never want to admit, even to myself, that the honeymoon phase is over.

And it will always be over. The brain can't sustain that level of infatuation for more than a few months. The infatuation evolves into something deeper, that, in fandom terms, lasts a few years for me.

By this time you also start noticing the flaws in your partner canon/fandom. Last time around, I didn't stick around long enough for that, thus preserving the AOS as a spotless beacon of creativity and joy in my mind. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't feel like reading fic at the moment, even though I know there's much more left to read. I haven't even touched my comic books in months. This wealth of accumulated stories that I've re-discovered is just sitting there, waiting for me to consume it.

I worry that with my brain chemistry back to normal, I won't have the drive to pick it up again.

The Discord-server is basically dead, which sucks. For a while, there was a lot of activity and I (kindakindakinda) felt like 2009 again. It was a glorious few weeks!

It doesn't help that the AOS is essentially a closed canon; which I both hate AND love.

I desperately do want another (good) film but at the same time I don't want it without Anton Yelchin.

What 2019-2020 has in store for me, I do not know, but I will definitely write a few more AOS fics.

Tl;dr If there are any AOS-fans out there that want to discuss writing or plot bunnies, hit me up!

Please, I'm dying up here. :D

The fic I've been writing for the past three months is finally complete and I'M SO PROUD OF IT!

It didn't quite break the 30k barrier as I was hoping, but it's the longest I've written in years! \o/

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17673458/chapters/41684390

You were - incidentally - a big part of mine in 2009.

Thank you for giving life to one of my favorite characters of recent years. I hope you’re resting easy.

I'm incredibly relieved there won't be another AOS film.

Not only did the last two films fail to re-create the magic of the first film, but the tragic death of Mr. Yelchin meant that the character of Chekov would have to be killed off. And I didn't want that!!

Beyond ends on such a hopeful note; all the characters are alive and well, Sulu has his family, Spock and Uhura reconciled, Jim overcoming his doubts to stay in Starfleet. Why would you want to mess with that??

I'm currently reading the tie-in comic books (which are pretty good!) and between that and the awesome fanfiction that is still being written I have enough AOS to make me very happy.

Sometimes it's good to leave well enough alone. <3

Nothing will ever top Spock's death from The Wrath of Khan. Those two, three seconds when he makes up his mind with nothing else showing of it than a slight wistfulness in his eyes. He doesn't hesitate saving his friends even though he knows he's going to die in agony. And the scene immediately following where he walks into the safety glass because the radiation has made him blind and Kirk's quiet, broken "no." ;_;

*side-eyes Into Darkness*

I enjoy watching film and TV deaths, the more tragic the better. It gives me that catharsis that I need, allows me to cry without feeling broken about it, because I know it's fiction. It's not real. No one died for real.

I'm feeling healthier about Anton Yelchin. My friend S talked me off the ledge as it was. I wasn't sleeping, just playing the same obsessive thoughts over and over again. There's nothing I can do. I can't bring anyone back from the dead. If I could, I'd bring him back.

He should be partying with his friends and making movies and having a family of his own (if he wanted) and if he didn't want to keep playing Chekov, the character could have been killed off in a touching sequence that made me cry and was turned into beautiful gifsets on Tumblr. But I'm not going to get that, and that's just the way it is.