commotiocordis

In celebration of my finding my tablet stylus while doing laundry (which I shall never besmirch again--I was moping over the prospect of shelling out $40 for a new one, but turns out the black stylus had somehow fallen to the bottom of the giant box I separated dark clothing into), I went all potatochop!happy.

The base picture for this was sort of unfortunately both black & white and already grained, hence the quality of the finished picture, but I downloaded it from some free stock photo site for this very purpose . . . *looks up* three years ago because the idea just hit me immediately upon seeing it. A couple of hours and components from five or six photos later, and I've subtly femslashed that baby (literally!) up. I was thinking about putting some sort of frame around it so it looked like a picture the girls would have on the mantel, but I didn't have anything that seemed to fit on the tablet (and its internet isn't working, so I couldn't try to find one)--may happen at some point, but for now:

Titling this seems stupid, but for organizational purposes: ( Seven and Daughter )

Cleaning out my "almost done" fic folder. It's mostly ancient stuff I never got around to posting because I couldn't come up with a title or there was a single line or two I wasn't happy with yet, and 87 fics/fic ideas/fic fragments is way too freaking many to have on my computer. Mostly because I'd be heartbroken if my computer died and I lost them (as has happened several times), even if I'd never otherwise get around to posting anything. So I'm finding the ones closest to being done and making myself finish them up. Here's one such more-than-three year old fic.

Never Again
Author:

crashcart9 (CrashCart9[at]Yahoo[dot]com)
Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Pairing: Beverly Crusher/Deanna Troi, implied Picard/Crusher and Riker/Troi
Date written: February 8, 2007 (mostly)
Set: During ST: Nemesis, post-wedding and pre-everything going down.
Rating: R
Summary: “You kissed her husband at the reception. You couldn’t bring yourself to kiss her."

( Because as my searching again a few days ago proves, there's nowhere near enough Beverly/Deanna fic on the interwebs. )

OKAY SO OMIGOD DREAM.

This was some weird shit.

It started with me somewhere public-ish. A mall, I think, but it was relatively deserted (not for any malicious reason, just that there happened to be only a few other people passing through that section of hall at that moment). But then all of a sudden, there were all these armed swat-team types around me. Huge guns, people shouting, and the impression that they were going to either kill or take me away and lock me up in some tiny little dungeon (a la UNIT and Toshiko Sato). I still have no idea what I did, but there's the general impression overall that it's a science-related/for-your-protection thing (like I was a scientist that they were going to need later in this war that hadn't broken out yet but they knew was going to, so I just ended up sitting around and being guarded. Idk, but it was definitely not that I was a bad guy, just more that they'd rather kill me than have me fall into the wrong hands. Look at me be all self-important in my dreams, LOL).

So they're surrounding me with guns and chaos, and I'm all "I DEMAND THAT YOU TAKE ME TO THE UNITED NATIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH GENEVA CONVENTION ARTICLE 2-point-some random number!!one!" Because I want me some civil treatment, kthx.

And then they do. Or idk. There's a jump in the dream there. And then I'm in this room; it seems like a sort of hotel room, but very small and greyish walls. It's really just a giant bed with a giant TV on the wall at the foot of it, with the door on the right side of the little strip of open floor between the foot of the bed and the wall with the TV. Definitely not guys surrounding me with guns anymore, and the treatment improves from here on in, so I have to assume I'm with the good-er guys now.

And then we get to the even weirder part. CHRIS PINE COMES IN. No lie. Don't know if he was C-Fine the actor or a character in the dream who was just being played by him in my head (I have no idea why he was allowed in my cell thing; there is no logic in this dream), but I definitely identified him as Chris even while I was asleep. Okay. Then even weirder. We're together or some such, because then begins hetsecks. I KNOW, RIGHT? My second sex dream ever, and it's not even Jude Law, who I'm nurturing this epic crush on right now, but Chris Pine (who I sekritly sort of think is goofy looking, but was hot in my dream).

So right. That happens, even if it ended sort of . . . prematurely, iykwim. I mean, there wasn’t the feeling that I was disappointed or anything; it was like that’s what I expected to happen, but there wasn’t any actual, erm, sexing. It was more of . . . oh, fuck it. I was lying back, and he straddled my legs sitting up, and I jerked him off. There. TMI? Yeah, probably, but I’m trying to get everything I remember about this one down, because I’m still not sure where it came from.

As a side note, it’s really interesting to me that my subconscious hasn’t realized that I’m bisexual. Or, to be more accurate, sexually bisexual (if that makes sense). Two dreams something like 4-5 years apart isn’t exactly a scientific sample, but it’s interesting that though I have dreams where I’m cuddly or get the feeling that I’m in a relationship with women, I’ve never actually sexed one in a dream, and this is two guys now. (ETA: Three, if you count the weird short one I had during a nap the same day as the long one! What is with me today?!)

Anyway, so after that, Chris starts flipping through the TV’s movie menu—I’ve never used PPV TV in my life, but the menu setup here was sort of like “cover flow” on mp3 players, if that makes sense. Titles and prices were listed top to bottom, and you could sort of scroll like spinning a wheel, and the title in the center was expanded for the cover shot and synopsis and runtime and stuff. I don’t recall more than the few specific titles that were mentioned, but in retrospect, they were in weird order, because there were movie series where we passed by the first early and had to scroll much farther for the 2nd or 3rd. And the prices were freaking insane. We’re talking $5,738 for The Blind Side. Older movies were cheaper—there were $68 ones (still insane, but comparatively speaking, that’s nothing). I happened to see Galaxy Quest 3 scroll by, and I hadn’t seen that before (because, you know, it doesn’t exist), so he picks that for me. I found him quite gallant, XD! But something goes wrong, and a different movie starts playing--Beauty and the Beast. (I think this one may be because 2ish weeks ago, I found this B&tB kids’ computer game I played on DOS when I was a lot younger and finally managed to beat it. Both the finding and the beating were quite exciting—there’s one minigame in it that’s hard for a kids’ program; I was playing on easy and still lost and had to start all over the first time.)

Somehow, it turns out it’s my sister’s fault. This almost-14 year old girl somehow managed to switch the movie that was going to play in this hotel-cum-cell thing. She had picked the wrong one somehow--the menu was just a menu, and selecting a movie just sent the request out and then a person had to intervene to get it playing, apparently. There was a question as to whether she misclicked or thought that was the one I wanted, but was apologetic (in that 13 year old “Gah! I’m sorry” sort of way) when I told her that we had to pay for these (why she wouldn’t know that if she was “behind the curtain” so to speak is more evidence of logiclessness).

The sister thing was apparently the segue into the fact that it turned out that we eventually (Chris was still with me) moved into my parents’ house somewhere (it wasn’t a room that actually existed, but the kitchen and back yard and stuff confirmed it as home). It was a time jump again, but control by the handler guys they had looking after us (it was obviously much more protection than anything else by now) had loosened, and I was allowed to go outside, and into my own backyard without supervision. It was an awesome day, weather-wise, and I played with our puppies. I thought about how I could pretty easily escape if I wanted to, but I’d only have at most an hour or two’s head start before they noticed I was gone because I was still under surveillance, and it was better to let them do what they wanted because it wasn’t a huge interference in my life by now anyway, and I’d rather keep it like it is than have it go back to the cellish place I was at the beginning. When I came back in, I puttered around in the kitchen and one of the handlers came up the stairs (which are right on the kitchen in my house) from the basement, thus revealing that in this latest dream!period of time, the current handlers had set up and were living in my basement.

Another time jump. Now, we’re in Springfield. There’s only one handler down there with C-Fine and I because it’s considered less of a target city (where in St. Louis, there were a bazillion and one on different shifts), but it’s time to go back up to St. Louis. We were in the airport in Springfield (which I’ve never seen, but judging as how it handles very little traffic, my brain made into a pretty cramped building with one ticket/customer service desk next to an escalator that led up to several boarding gates) trying to find out how much it would cost to get a ticket to St. Louis. Chris and I figured that we could convince the handlers that it was safer (less transit time along sometimes pretty deserted highways with only one handler/protector guy) and probably not too much more expensive. Because we figured why not try to get a flight out of this whole inconvenient deal.

And then I woke up. I’d set my alarm way earlier than I actually needed to, though, which sucked, because I would have loved to find out what happened next. I get good, memorable dreams so rarely that something like this is really awesome for me. I had another 40ish minutes I ended up trying to go back to sleep for, but only actually fell asleep for part of it and couldn’t get the dream pulled back up anyway, but I sort of expected as much.

ETA continued from above: BUT THEN. When I got back from class, I putzed around the computer and stuff, then took a nap before I had to go do my volunteerything at the hospital (apparently, my reactions to TB tests would like you to believe I’ve never so much as seen La Boheme—which I have, thankyouverymuch, but I’m so unreactive you can barely see a bit of redness where I was poked). And in said nap was ANOTHER DREAM. As this was a short nap, there was very little detail I gleamed and basically no events except for one and OMG IT WAS HORRIFYING. We were in Grimmauld Place (before we get too much further, let me admit that I’ve been reading almost exclusively Harry Potter fic in the last two or three weeks, so this one is in basic setting a bit more understandable) and I was Harry Potter. In the first, long one with Chris Pine, I was myself, so this was odd. Maybe I wasn’t him, because he was still him, but I was seeing things through his perspective (like when Harry!Nagini bit Arthur Weasley, yaknow?) or something? Whatevs. Then the weird part. I don’t remember much setup, but basically Harry got seduced by Voldemort.

And then they were kinda sexing. Or, rather, more of a prelude to it. Making out and grinding.

I KNOW, WHAT THE FUCK, RIGHT? A., I am not Harry Potter, nor (though it would be FUCKING AWESOME) are Harry Potter and I psychically connected a la Harry and Voldemort. B., Even if I were or were connected to Harry Potter, I hardly think I/he would be smexing up Voldemort. C., WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN?

That is all.

From a comment thread on

ontd_startrek wherein Star Trek/Firefly crossovers were discussed. Namely, how they'd work.

First, I NEED TO WATCH THIS SHOW AGAIN. It's been a year or so since I've seen any of it, I think, and I had a hankering to watch it again not long ago but had other stuff (prolly school) to do and didn't. Want.

Second, the question was posed: Putting both fandoms in the same area of space isn't too far of a stretch (

hiding_places suggested they were in the Romulan Neutral Zone, thus preventing contact either direction), but how do you explain that Star Trek's got warp at 2053 and the Federation kicks in about one hundred years later, but Firefly's in the Unification war in 2506 without said warpy awesome?

To fix the tech discrepancy, I always sort of pictured it as a Battlestar Galactica-like situation. Colonists break off because of whatever, Earth-that-was (the one that joins up with the Federation and all manner of win like that) is essentially again the mythical 13th colony. And Earth's naturally technologically ahead because they don't have to waste their resources building up new colonies and terraforming and trying to survive, which I presume takes hundreds of years, and could pretty easily put the colonists back that far. Not to mention, it's not necessarily that Fireflyverse is totally behind--it's easy to assume because of the rim worlds' tech, but we hear of things like laser pistols and sonic guns and the whole hospital on Ariel is pretty kick ass if you move in towards the core--though I wouldn't argue that it is a little, we see more divergent tech evolution (that yes, happens to be slower for the above-named reason) than simply progressing like molasses along the same technological track as the Star Trek-verse.

So if St's first contact was 2053, considering that Earth just left a massive, massive war and had no resources and presumably the communications were also shit, I don't think it's too far out there to assume that it's some time before warp ships were available to the general populace (we know Travis Mayweather's folks had one sometime before the 2150s, but idk if they mention how far before). The leaving colonists would probably thus turn to one of those cryogenic ships that we see being used around the Eugenics wars as the most recent decently available technology, which also happens to be really suited to the running away they're trying to do. Maybe they're cryovac'd for 100 years, and then 300ish spent building the colonies and forming the fledgling Alliance to piss off the outer colonies before the Unification war starts.

The story that Earth was dead and dried up when the colonists left it is just the result of whatever division that led the colonists to leave in the first place spawning revisionist history that nobody now knows is incorrect. And then if you go with the RNZ explanation (like!), no communication. Other possibilities include the delta or gamma quadrants (the latter if you want the Fireflyverse to be easily play-withable, thanks to the handy dandy wormhole) since we still don't know heads nor tails of those guys. Also, possibly beyond the galactic barrier--Earth and Vulcan and Kronos and stuff are really pretty close to the edge of the galaxy if I'm recalling my Star Trek maps correctly, yet we rarely leave it in the later ST universes (I can recall one of the TOS-set video games doing so, but nothing else springs to mind).

LOOK IT'S ANOTHER FIC.

I've entitled this baby "Relief", not because it particularly has anything to do with the fic (as this is 99% PWP), but because I wrote it for the

ontd_startrek Party Post on 15-16 January 2009 while we were raising money for the UNICEF and the relief efforts in Haiti (and the vague mentions of other-than-sexing it does have refer to the Enterprise being sent on a disaster relief mission that I envisioned similar to the work that's going on down there right now). If you happen to see this while it's still going on, check out http://tinyurl.com/trek4haiti and consider chipping in a few dollars.

I decided to repost the whole thing instead of just the final part or two chopped up because the first two parts weren't able to be commented on since we MAXED OUT THE PARTY POST IN 4 HOURS GODDAMN. To recap, this is:
Relief
Fandom: Star Trek (reboot)
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: NC-17 pornpornporn
Notes: Wrote this amidst comment spamming on the party post and with (still) very little sleep, so. . . this fic got 99 problems but a plot ain't one. (Yea-uh, Geordi!) Also, the dirty talk in Vulcan? Mouse over for the translation. If you actually click on the Vulcan, bonus pictures of Pinto.

( Because Star Trek fandom floors me with its awesome generosity. )

Vulcan source: Mostly the STO Geekipedia’s language lessons (sigh. All of them) with added lessons on noun/verb extrapolation from https://webspace.utexas.edu/bighamds/LIN312/Files/Vulcan-intro.pdf . No lie, goddamn did I spend a long time learning way more about Vulcan grammar than I needed to for two sentences, especially because I decided I had to be all picky and accurate and not use the verb "blow" even though it was right there in front of me because I knew it didn't translate to the sexy kind that I wanted. Yeah, that's right, to the best of my several hours of work on this, that shit is accurate Vulcan dirty talk. What the fuck now, huh?

A fellow GQMF (props to

flawed_karma) beat me to uploading these to

ontd_startrek, but since this is actually a more complete listing of the ebooks, I figured though it didn't deserve its own post on the comm, it needed one somewhere.

This appears to be the most recently updated collection of Star Trek novels out there at the moment--it's got the Destiny books (which I managed to stop in the middle of *again* thanks to that stupid thing called school), but they're in LRF format which you'll have to google around for a reader/converter for because I added them in from an individual post. The rest of them are TXT files. You know, Notepad/Wordpad type basic stuff. Your best bet is to open them in Word or whatever your chosen software is, as that will put in the linebreaks for you--when you open them in Notepad, you'd have to scroll to the right to finish every line, which is mondo annoying. I dumped my LIT files for these both because, as was mentioned, this is a more complete archive, and because my Sony E-Reader takes RTF and these to RTF is a simple Word "save-as" rather than having to download converters and such. Hell, my MP3 player that I spent high school reading fics on on the school bus takes TXT, so it's a pretty universal format just because of its ancientness.

( The list of books it contains. )

I highly recommend the entire "Other Collections" section. The Dark Passions books I think I've raved about before--it's the DS9 Mirror Universe, L-Word style. It doesn't shy away from all the canon girlysex shown to be going on over there, which is refreshing, as most of the other MU books tend to do so. Section 31 books are also awesome. Anything with high quantities of Seven I'm good for, but the TNG one is about Sean Hawk, a bit character in ST: First Contact whose partner goes on to be one of the main characters in the Titan: Taking Wing series with Deanna and Riker on the Titan post-Nemesis. And of course, DS9's A Stitch in Time by Andy Robinson (the actor who played Garak) is entirely Garak's letters to Bashir and canonically reveals Garak's omnisexuality for anyone who managed to close their eyes so incredibly tightly to miss his wonderfully . . . odd acting. I mainlined DS9 last night (12 hours straight, no lie), and I have to tell you, that man is awesome. [/watch Alexandria pick out the gay]

These are
not links.
GQMF is not an adequate substitute for hypertext transfer protocol, unfortunately. Right click + copy URL so you can fix it yourselves.

Convos I've been having with folks on Omegle during our

ontd_startrek flashmob-esque GQMFifying of the site.

If you've never used Omegle, basically you get randomly paired up with a fellow chatter. It's totally anonymous, and 90% of the time the other person asks you stupid shit like a/s/l and to show your breasticles on webcam or some bs, but I've been having a lot of fun with it. Usually they get weirded out and just disconnect:

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: hey
Stranger: whats up???
You: Fun will now commence.
Stranger: ok...
You: Hi, Christopher. I'm Nero.
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

But not always:
( This one's NSFW )

I did a bunch of them where I just quoted Voyager episodes to try and get somebody to play along (the semi-object is also to find a fellow

ontd_startreker):

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: m or f?
You: Naomi Wildman, subunit of Ensign Samantha Wildman. State your intentions.
Stranger: ummm sex... :(
You: Very well. You leave me no choice but to report your activities to the Captain.
Stranger: o damn please dont
You: Explain.
Stranger: ur mothers penis?
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

But I actually played Seven of Nine for a while with this guy (whom I cast as B'Elanna Torres, natch). This one was kind of funny--I started out as Seven during "Infinite Regress", where she's going through all the different personalities, but that gave way to his B'Elanna subplot wherein she is insubordinate and steals a shuttle. Mostly it's me feeding stuff to him and little responses, as you would expect from someone who has no idea what you're doing, but his last line is almost as epic as ( my geekprov skills: )

( Another rather bullshitty one with someone who wouldn't play )

I don't know what the first question of this one was about, but this person played with me quite well. I was pleased.
( TOS battleish scene. )

And then this motherloving epic of awesomeness. I may have to make this into a fic, because I spent way too damn much time Spocking it out over here to just waste all this writing. (Fic!Kirk will be much less reticent, naturally. Chatter!Kirk did not want to get all down with the gay.) But I ask you, "Ron"? I say "Vulcan", "Doctor McCoy", "Starfleet" and am calling you James T. Kirk and you call me Ron? For serious? I'd chalk the continuance up to consistency, as he did call me Ron before I gave quite as explicit of clues as to what I was doing, but I think everybody would switch to Spock once I made it this bloody clear. And some of his comments don't really seem to fit, like he didn't quite grasp the Star Trekness still.

( Kirk/Spock 4 page epic chat )

Still, he played with me for a *looong* time, which was lolarious. Still haven't met any legit GQMFs from the comm, though. Was planning on keeping trying, but atm my hips are being random bitches and really *really* painful, so I've got to go. . . idk, curl up in bed and try to find a position in which they do not ache like whoa.

ontd_startrekers, I love you all.

When asked if Levar Burton or Brent Spiner or anyone else from the TNG cast was at the premiere of ST-XI:

Jonathan Frakes: "I don't know who else is coming. My Imzadi and I are here representing us."
Marina Sirtis: "Yeah, we're representing the TNG group."

AWW! For serious. The Imzadi reference made my day. That's somebody that. . . idk, takes pride in what he's done. You get so many celebs that are like "Ugh, fans," and then he goes and throws that out there, and it's not like the whole Imzadi thing was huge in the actual show (though I suppose there was a lot of it in Nemesis, which was the most recent save their appearance in Enterprise), so it really means a lot. Plus, just aww. I like those two.

They also mentioned that if they do a younger-TNG cast movie, Riker is Zac Efron, which means that Troi is then naturally Vanessa Hudgens. I CALL CRUSHER. RIGHT NOW. TRUFAX MINE. Mr. Abrams? For serious, call me.

I'm fairly miffed at the whole movie scenario, though. There's a sort of pre-party at this sci-fi club (it shares space with something else and is only open on Tuesdays, so I've never actually been there, but at some point) on Tuesday where they're giving out free passes to see the movie a day early (and free!) on Wednesday, though of course both in St. Louis, where I am currently, you know, not. I'm not going to be able to see it for a while with finals and all--I mean, I could go see it Thursday night pretty easily because I've got no classes on Friday, but it just doesn't feel exciting enough to warrant it, since there's no hoopla down here that I can find. I might even just wait until it hits the cheap theaters in the summer, because it doesn't feel all that urgent considering that it's already happened in the body of Star Trek canon. I'm more excited to read the next book in the post-Nemesis series that I'm working my way through (though paused atm, as I finished the last one I could find for e-book and have to get the final in the Destiny trilogy from the library back in STL) I find. No doubt the movie will be a romp, as everybody seems to be saying it's pretty awesome, but I was counting on a kick-ass midnight premiere with geeks and costumes and going with my family, and anything else is going to be a disappointment just in environment.

Reading through Memory Alpha. Started to look up a distinction about Klingon hearts for my RPG (they're referred to in canon both as having two hearts and having an 8-chambered one, the latter tending to be by characters who would be expected to be knowledgeable, but I wanted to make sure), went to fixing the article about the DS9 episode "Babel" (they had the kind of aphasia they experienced totally wrong; it's Wernicke's, not global), and somehow managed upon the article on Sexuality. It's a good article, actually, talking a lot about the issue of homosexuality in Star Trek (at first I was all "Erm, I'm probably the wrong person to point this out considering how every ST character who's ever been in a room with another of the same sex is sleeping with that person in my universe, but there's such a thing as heterosexuality too," but that's really all covered via canon examples of different species' courtships and mating and such in more specified articles). My initial dislike for it, I realized while beginning to write this up to get to the quote I'll present in a minute, was really because of what they were reporting and the fact that there are no gay people in Star Trek unless they're Mirror Universe and thus somewhat evil. Which is how they're perceived, as well, as shown by my having to edit up the Wikipedia article on MU characters because somebody decided that MU!Ezri and MU!Leeta were bisexual (it's suggested that Ezri is a lesbian and Leeta we only see for a few seconds and have no way of knowing) and thereby "promiscuous" (we see Ezri with Kira whom she decides is morally corrupt and dumps for Leeta, and Leeta just with Ezri. Not promiscuous in my book, especially if you consider that in the novels, the pair got married).

This is another example of what I thought was my dislike for the article and have decided upon further reading is just my dislike for the situation/producers.

"The production team over the years has stated that they do not want to create a "token" homosexual character for the express purpose of the issue, anymore than they want to create a black character purely to address racial issues."

Was his acting really that bad that no one remembers, idk, SISKO? That was entirely his point. And even if it wasn't his initial point of being there, Avery Brooks turned it into the point with his requisite, twice a season episodes talking about how bad racism is. I mean, it's bad, but I'm watching Star Trek, kthx, and though social commentary is important, I think not only did we get it the first time, society as a whole has pretty much moved past the whole separate drinking fountains thing, I'd hope. Instead of talking about how the past sucked, talk about how we can move forward and love each other, etc. etc.

Clicked on a featured story on the Yahoo home page (one of the mini!featured stories listed in little links under the real featured one, actually; "Designer brings pajamas to the street" below "$43,000 suit sells well during recession"). And the tab that popped up (I haven't opened it yet) says "Yamamoto brings sleepwear onto t. . . " and whatever after that. Presumably Yamamoto is the aforementioned designer. And all I could think of was "but we killed Yamamoto!" LOLOL, West Wing geekage.

Finally got around to watching all of the Face of the Enemy BSG webisodes. The Gaeta plot twist in last night's episode makes more sense now, though I'm going to watch the webisodes again because I was (as per usual) sort of half paying attention and thus wasn't clear on the whole Gaeta/Sharon/people on the planet deal.

Let's see, what else. Umm, pissed that I'm not home this weekend, because it's the weekend of the open call for extras for Clooney's On the Air that's filming in the STL. To add insult to injury, the open call's at the mall that's all of a 10 minute walk from my house. And I can't just fill out the form and send it in because they need a picture as well, and I don't have a color printer here. May try to make the family do it for me and just drop it by the casting office (right down the road from aforementioned mall) once I pick out a picture (I don't have any recent ones that make me look oldish, which I have the feeling is what they're looking for), but first I've got to figure out the answers--I spend most of my time in t-shirts and workout pants now, both because of the comfort factor and the way my weight keeps bouncing around, so I've got very little idea on my clothes' sizes, and absolutely none on a dress size (especially because I'm still quite busty, so though I'm okay in pants and shirts because I can size them individually, I might have to go up one or two from the size for the rest of my body to find a dress that'll fit my chest).

CDC's sexually transmitted infections report came out a bit ago. Still not ever going to have sex in St. Louis, kthx: #1 again in gonorrhea and chlamydia. Umm. . . at least we're not the most dangerous anymore? Though LOL, I suppose that depends on how you define "danger".

Heard some people talking at brunch this morning (meaning, erm, yesterday morning) about the inauguration (a word which I still cannot spell--I leave out the first 'u' every time) music being taped. I think they misinterpreted the story, though--thinking, I believe, of the story with the little girls in China where one sang the anthem and another lip-synched it because the first wasn't attractive enough. This is Yo Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Anthony McGill, and some pianist whose name I didn't recognize but is undoubtedly of the same caliber. There is no one else who could stand behind them and play that music while they waved their bows/fingers. It was still them, just prerecorded.

And still. Have you ever tried to play in the cold? I have, fairly often with Fiddlers. Think about how your fingers feel when they're exposed in the winter. Stiff and painful, no? Now add to that your instrument gumming up in much the same way and bitter wind blowing around while you're trying to pull a light wood-and-horse-hair bow in a smooth line across a very narrow target that will produce the optimum sound. From what Yo Yo Ma says, that's SOP for these events--they did it at Bush's goodbye thing a few days ago as well.

Oh, and so I don't forget. Was in Dillon's (grocery store down here, part of the Kroger chain, none of which we have in St. Louis) and picked up a Star Trek Magazine issue to flip through. At the end of Nana Visitor's interview, she says something about how cool it would have been to have there have been (wow--spend too long looking at those last few words and you'll really get confused) a switch between Kira and Intendant Kira that nobody knew about, so at the end, you've got everybody running off in different places leaving her in charge, and imagine all of the mischief she could have gotten up to ~~with Ro Laren~~. Now I really want to write that, maybe tying it in with the Annika overthrowing her in the Dark Passions books (as the impetus for her semi-permanent defection to our realm), but I'd have to watch the 7th season again--I haven't seen most of the whole plotty section of DS9 with the war and all, just knowing it through fanon and the semi-canon of the novels. Still. Would be great.

Ahh, Majel Barrett Roddenberry. Science fiction TV will not be the same without thee.

In other news. Home. Cold. As per usual. People driving idiotically slowly on the highway--I promise you guys, it was just rain. And not even enough to turn my wipers on past the first notch. That doesn't deserve a 25mph slow down. It was probably the most active I've ever had to drive--usually I just stick my cruise control on and leave it, passing people when I need to in order to stay at the same speed. Nope. Constant adjustment because nobody could stay steady. It was nuts. And probably contributory to my burning a half tank of gas, which is more than I expected.

Watching Twilight.
Edward needs to stop sucking so much at keeping secrets. "Then I heard what those guys were thinking. . ." 'Oh, oops.'
So lemme get this straight. It's not cowboys vs. indians, it's vampires vs. indians?

Well, shit. I wasn't supposed to like this movie. I mean, the romance is implausible, there's very little explanation behind the vampires/weres and their abilities/feud/whatever, it's teenage sappy (slow dancing at prom? Seriously?), and half the time Bella's delivery is complete deadpan, but I'm intrigued by the universe. Kick most of the romance out ("I want you. Always." Blech.) and explain stuff better and I think I could get into it. I hear the books aren't significantly better, though, especially the last one (Publisher's Weekly says "Essentially, everyone gets everything they want, even if their desires necessitate an about-face in characterization or the messy introduction of some back story."

Other things. Playing the Sims, and some random NPC calls me up and is all "Oh, you're in the law enforcement field? I've got friends in that field, and I'm going to tell them that you deserve higher wages, Mary." Or some such, you know? Yay, right? Except for one thing. My character's name is Amy. Odd.

LOL, this has totally become one of those multi-day-long LJ marathon posts where I have a few things to say each day and then just never actually hit post. Watching the Voyager episode "Ashes to Ashes," and the ex-dead ensign chick that the alien species brought back to life is about to go fulfill #6 on her long list of things to do once she got back to Voyager--"dazzle Lieutenant Torres." Okay, first? I cannot be the only one that fortune cookied that: "-- in bed." And second, keeping it on the same note: that was number 6? Out of all the things she missed about Federation life and wanted to experience again after getting back, B'Elanna made it to number 6? Yeah. Totally in bed. Now I should prolly unpause and actually find out what she meant. But I'm almost content to just skip this next scene and go on assuming that it meant sex.

And later in that same episode:
Harry: "Are you feeling human enough for a little skating?"
Ensign Lyndsay Ballard: "I'd love to. But I already have a date." (Walks away somewhat cockily.)
Harry: "Who with?"
Lyndsay: (Same sing-songy, superior attitude.) "The captain. She's invited me to her quarters for dinner."

Marathon cont. Now Friday. 4:35am. I wanted this really great price on blank DVDs at Inkstop ($9 for 50 of a good brand), and I figured I'm still awake, so I ran out there right at 4 when they opened. Maybe 2 other people in there, another coming as I left. Not bad at all. Tiny store, so much more than that and it would have gotten cramped, but okay. But I passed Kohl's on the way there. OMG. This Kohl's has two decent sized parking lots, one in front and one in back. Together, they add up to probably a lot the size of a standard Wal-Mart's lot. At 4 in the bloody AM, there were so many people there that some people were parking at the grocery store next to it and walking over. I didn't even see anything really good in their ad, so I don't get it. I thought about stopping just out of curiosity to find out what everybody was getting, but I figured it'd be better to get home and perhaps not alert the parentals to my absence and, you know, unauthorized usage of their car ~~and debit card~~ for the DVD run.

Thinking about going back out at 6 for Target's House/Psych/Monk $14 season sets, but there's a dilemma there. I can download all of those. And burn them onto my fancy new DVDs. It won't have extras or cool menus, but they'll work. I decided no on the House, just because it reruns 24/7 on some cable channel or another. The parents were thinking about the Psych/Monk getting, but I don't want to wake them up at 6 to ask if I should go get them or not. I might go and buy whatever I can and just return it if they decide no, but idk what the return policy is: if it's different with Black Friday stuff, if I can only get store credit, etc.

Def. running out to Harbor Freight Tools at some point, because the DVD case there (240 slots, and with the rings so it's expandable if you buy more sheets, for $10) totally owns the the DVD case that I was planning on getting at InkStop (128 slots, non-expandable, for $10) to replace the similar one that has all my DVDs in it that Tyler lost. But they don't open until 7. I've never been into one of those stores before, so idk what to expect re: needing to get there early and such. They don't seem to have big special sale adverts on their website, so I might be safe going to sleep and just getting there whenever and seeing if they still have it. Because I'm really needing one of those guys, as I've got DVDs in 4 different cases at the moment and all of them are beyond full (meaning I've got some just stuffed into the case and the thing zipped/snapped closed with a prayer that they'll stay in without getting too scratched up).

5:30am. I've just realized that I've very nearly finished an entire 3-liter of off-brand diet coke in less than the last 5 hours. Perhaps that's why the beginnings of a headache keep nibbling at my brain.

Might as well finally hit post, LOL, as this has now expanded longer than a page.

Because I am a failure, a good half or so of the paragraph that I'm on for this paper that was due yesterday has been left on my computer at school. So rather than write it again, I think I'm going to bed now to hopefully be able to pull together that plus a conclusion into a page or so during the 70ish minutes I'll have free before economics. Shouldn't be too hard, but then again, until my dog shut up (he thought he didn't get enough to eat tonight before we ran out of dog food, the baby, and so cried for hours until I finally tossed him a couple of pieces of bread just to shut him up before I was forced to open the front door and let him out into the neighborhood so he'd bother somebody else) I only managed to scrape together about half a page in some two hours.

Ehh. This is life. I do not want to get bitched at for not taking the trash out (in 4 hours or so). Like always.

Reminds self. You made up a couple of page numbers for the second book citation. If you ever want to do anything with this paper beyond turn it in to econ, fix that.

Edit: Oh, and I found that Star Trek book, Before Dishonor, that everybody's been talking about. It was Peter David, what can I say? Perhaps talk to come on that. It confused me, because I'm pretty sure there was supposed to be a book before that, but nothing in this book said so, so idk.

Quote of the Day:

"Don't let faux Klingons send real Americans to war."
David Wu (D-Oregon), 10 January 2007 address to US House of Representatives.

Yeah. Made me laugh. Found the bit of his speech on youtube; he starts off referencing those books that call Bush's support the Vulcans, and ends up saying that they're Klingons, not Vulcans, and fake Klingons at that.

Had a nightmareish thing Friday night. There was a bunch of stuff in it and for some reason a lot of it was set in my old elementary school, but the basic deal was that I didn't have my 20 minute speech prepared for theatre on Monday. Well, it's not looking good in real life.

I had planned to work on it on Saturday, but I've been sick all of a sudden and so I didn't feel well and then we went TV shopping and when I got home on Saturday I was too tired to do much. Friday was spent finishing reading the damn play, finishing watching the movie of said damn play (because we've been taught so little that I've got no idea how to express what I want on stage and I hoped that the movie would help me out in that area a bit), moping around feeling sick and watching DS9 episodes while sprawled out in bed, and then working. Now I'm back, just finished finishing watching the play, but am really too tired to do anything. Problem is that even though I'm legitimately sick enough to not show up tomorrow, this is a one day, no extensions, no nothing type of deal that gets recorded and sent off to wherever to be graded as part of the eighty-someodd dollars I spent as registration (the money being for said grading, truly). Man, this is definitely the most expensive class I'm taking this year. No kidding. I've spent (or should have spent, a couple of times I managed to get in free somehow), not counting the registration money, more than $30 going to see plays and such.

Back to the TV shopping. My mum bought some entertainment center thing (which I always used to think meant TV and stereo and DVD player and such, but really is just the cabinet for some dumb reason) and mixed up our entire front room, and me being so vehemently anti-change freaked out and told her that it looked horrid (it makes the whole room off center as the TV's now way off to the left and the new focal point of the room is this patch of bare wall in the middle where the molding at the bottom was ripped off right after everything got moved in order to replace it for some reason) and she yelled at me for being so negative (true, but it really did look bad) and completely irrationally and mostly because I was pissed at my mum, I then refused to go into the front room for a day and a half (or really just 20 hours or so, excepting the couple of times I averted my eyes as I had to go through to get a drink or something). We get to Saturday and my brother brings home two disks of the Deep Space Nine season two DVDs, and I'm trying to get them to play, but the TV just has fuzz on the input channel when it should be playing them. I fiddle with the cords, trying every combination, but neither DVD nor VHS input is working. My brother phrases something poorly and mum jumps on me for blaming her (when I hadn't even said a bloody thing, where's the fair in that), and I go back into my room to start reading some of the Beckett crap I got from the library. Later, I hear that shortly after that the whole TV display went out; it quit working for regular TV too, not just input things. So my dad and I then spend nearly two hours between CompUSA (as they're moving all the stores out of our city and as such we figured they might have cheapy TVs, and they were all 15% off, but they only had big flat screen things that were hugely expensive to begin with, so we moved on) and Best Buy, end up getting one from the latter. Which was no easy task, as we finally find a good and semi-reasonably priced one, but then they can't find the one that they've supposedly got in stock. Turns out that they don't have one, but then I ask if we could get the display one, because I really liked that one and it was the only one that had decent picture and would fit in said new ~~entertainment center~~ cabinet and wasn't a bazillion dollars. They say yes, but then they can't find a remote and don't have a box, so we're fiddling around with that, finding out if universal remotes will work (they said only one brand would, but luckily we brought it home and found out they were wrong and the cheapy kind we have does) and such. Da talks them down like $50, which was impressive (though half of it was in gift card form, annoyingly). He's really good at that, because he worked in retail for a while and just always asks. Most people have no idea that you can do that, or at least I figure my entire generation doesn't, but he says that there's always a lot of wiggle room with price and most of the time if you're looking at the right stuff you can get them to knock it down a little, especially if it's the last one in stock and there's no remote/box/documentation like with the TV. Anyway. Oh, and the guy selling it to us was rather nice looking and called my dad Sir. I love that.

We bring this TV home and plug it in and it's nearly 10:30, but I start watching the "Endgame" movie before going to bed. Wake up this morning and mum's bitching about how it takes like 5 seconds to change channels. Which it does, which is annoying as hell. She wants it taken back now, though, as supposedly TVs are like 2/3 or half that price around Christmas. I'm all "So, we're supposed to not have a TV until Christmas?" *shakes head* I dunno. Odd stuff, my mum lately. I decided this time that it's some odd Freudian shit. She's subconsciously afraid that I'm going to challenge her for her position as alpha-female, and as such is pre-emptively striking at me out the wazoo. That or she's just PMSing. I'm wagering it's a combo of the two. But my da says that his mum and sisters did the same thing, which is what makes me go towards the former. Even though I think Freud is a chauvinist pig, I do see where he gets his ideas.

Anyway. A good 30 minutes or so wasted typing this that I could have spent figuring out what the hell I'm going to talk about for 20 minutes tomorrow. I'm prolly going to make most of it up on the spot. Whatever. I was all uber, uber depressed Friday and to a slightly lesser extent (meaning that I wasn't actively thinking about how I wanted to kill myself, but still just as bad all the same) on Saturday, and right now I've now got the 'still really depressed in general but at this present moment in time closer to apathy than wrist-slitting' thing going on. Which suggests to me that dumb medicine isn't working, but on the off chance it is, I started the new pack today instead of waiting until Wednesday because I didn't feel like being miserable if it could be helped.

I'm probably going to go to sleep now if I can (I had a horrid time going back to sleep after I woke up after aforementioned nightmare on Friday just because I was thinking about how I might not get it prepared well; without having it prepared really at all at this point I dunno if I'll be able to sleep, but we can hope). I'm gonna set my alarm for a few hours from now, wake up and try to work on it then when I'm not just thinking about how tired I am. Hopefully my stupid stomach won't be bugging me as much then.

Oh, and if any of you haven't read yet and get the chance to read "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you totally should. I love the writing style of it, all circular and reporter-like and fun. Plus, the story is really good--you've got honor and murder and religion and apathy and all those fun things (I'd explain more, but I don't know how to talk about the interesting bit of the story without giving stuff away). I really want to at some point try to write something styled like that (shorter, though, as it's basically a sorta small novel) because it's such an interesting form. This is probably the thing that I've had to read for school that I've enjoyed the most all year. Even though I've still got like 30 pages to go in it, actually, now that I think about it. I should finish that. Ha, but I won't be in english class tomorrow because I've got to do the theatre thing, so I don't have to try to get through it tonight. Like I'd do it tonight anyway.

Current Mood: morose

Does anyone know the song that is played in the background of all the Conviction teasers?

On a side note, my mom has begun to immediately turn the channel whenever one of the teasers comes on, as I tend to sigh and begin listing off all the cool things they could have done with bringing Alex Cabot back and with the plotline of the pilot (as much as I've gleaned through spoilers and the teasers themselves).

And on another note way on the other side, you know you're a Star Trek fan when you're reading Silas Marner and every time you come across the name Eppie, you think immediately of the New Frontier books.

The Hookup

Captain Archer sat in his chair on the bridge and pretended to listen as Trip went through the engineering report. There was a glitch in the plasma-intake manifolds so they were in orbit around a planet that luckily was very similar to Earth. At least they had that going for them. Hoshi had programmed the translators for the Hintaarian language, so the crew were taking leave in shifts during the repair work.

"...the generators should be online in a matter of hours, but the coolant valves, that's another story. Seems like one thing busts and the rest just fall like dominoes." At this point he was interrupted by a sigh from the captain. "Something wrong, Captain?" Trip asked his friend. When no response was forthcoming, Trip followed Archer's gaze to Hoshi. She was facing one of the consoles on at her station, but a look at her expression told him that she wasn't looking at some strange language. No, that dreamy, longing look was directed past the console to a certain Sub-Commander working intently at the station behind her.

Just then, T'pol looked up. Hoshi quickly brought her eyes back down to the console and pretended to be engrossed in whatever was on the screen.

"Do you require assistance?" T'Pol's query was directed at Hoshi.

"Wh-What?" Hoshi stuttered.

"Do you need assistance?" she repeated. "You have been studying the same console without changing it's display for the past 92 minutes and 39 seconds. The relevant conclusion is that you are having difficulty with whatever is on the screen. Do you need assistance?"

Hoshi paled. "Umm, no. I'm... fine. Don't help. Just taking while...working f-fine alone...not necessary...no," she babbled before a ferocious blush came over her and she ducked her head back to study the console intently.

"And she's supposed to be the ship's linguist," Trip joked to Archer sotto voce. He looked at the captain. He seemed to be thinking, still watching Hoshi, but his eyes had narrowed in the way Trip had come to associate with a plan in the works. They both knew Hoshi had it bad. The only question was what to do.

Archer suddenly stood up and beckoned Trip to follow. They went into his ready room and sat down. "I assume you've come to the same conclusion I have regarding our officers," Archer addressed Trip for the first time.

"A little formal, aren't'ya, considering what I know you're planning to do?" Trip knew the captain's record for this kind of thing. It hardly ever worked and it usually ended up with both of them in a shit-load of trouble. But it sure as hell was fun. However, Trip was reluctant to be involved in something as potentially painful as Archer's previous plan. Or rather the consequences of his last plan. That one was bad. Like broken nose, black eye, bruised testicle, 3 slaps and 2 facefulls of drink between them bad.

"What makes this different than last time?" asked Trip, skeptically. "The difference?" Archer began. "The difference is that this time, its gonna work."

--------------------------------------------------

"Swimming?" Hoshi asked incredulously.

"Yes." confirmed T'Pol, "Captain Archer has deemed it necisary for me to be instructed in human methods of self-propulsion in water, and that you should instruct me in these."

“You’re the only one qualified, Hoshi.”

“Is this an order, Captain?” Hoshi couldn’t decide whether she’d prefer it to be, or not. On the one hand, the last thing she wanted to do was make a fool of herself in front of T’Pol. But on the other was the vision that had been coursing through her mind ever since she heard that she had to teach the commander to swim: a vision of T’Pol in a sleek, black bikini, dripping as she stepped out of the water and shook her hair sensuously...

“Hoshi? You still there?” She snapped back to Captain Archer’s ready room where he was smiling, knowingly.

“Sorry, sir.”

“She needs taught; what if we had to make a water landing?” Okay, it was a stretch, but he was the captain, it’s his ship.

“Yes, sir.” She resigned herself to the work. This could either turn out really well or really poorly. But, T’Pol in a bathing suit? She decided it was worth it.

Travis was shuttling them down to the planet where they were to camp out near the beach for the duration of their leave. In an effort to ease the silence between them that was growing uncomfortable, Hoshi asked “I trust you brought your swimsuit?”

T’Pol raised an eyebrow. ‘That little movement can mean so many things,’ Hoshi mused, ‘It is communication, so it’s my field. Maybe I should write a book.’

“I was unaware protective attire was required for this activity,” T’Pol responded. ‘Great,’ Hoshi thought, ‘that means she’s probably never even seen somebody swim. Hey! How’d she get out of the Captain’s water polo nights?’ Keeping her curiosity about T’Pol’s excuse for missing the captain’s videos inside, she said, “It’s not protective, but it is sleek, to reduce resistance, and doesn’t get heavy when wet.”

“Then it is unnecessary.” ‘Oh please,’ Hoshi prayed, ‘don’t tell me she plans on doing this naked! They’ll have to send Phlox down because I’ll have had a heart attack. That, or she’ll have ripped my head off because I kept drooling over her.’ She then let her thoughts go off on a tangent. A completely relevant and related tangent that occupied her mind for some time. Which could be summarized like this: ‘I wonder how Vulcans make love?’

“Ensign. Ensign.” Hoshi was jolted out of her reverie by the object of her thoughts, and subsequently blushed.

“Sorry, Commander.”

“We are on final descent. We will arrive in approximately 2 minutes, 27 seconds. You should prepare.”

“Thank you,” Hoshi smiled, and was rewarded with an acknowledging nod. So far, it wasn’t shaping up to be that bad.

Hoshi waved to Travis as he took off. They began setting up camp, but to Hoshi’s dismay, some of their equipment was malfunctioning. Her tent was ruined. She considered calling Travis and asking him to shuttle down a new one, but as if reading her mind, T’Pol said, "That would be an illogical waste of resources." However, she didn’t provide an alternative solution, so Hoshi had to devise her own.

"So, I guess I’ll just sleep under the stars. Shouldn’t be too bad." T’Pol raised an eyebrow. Hoshi should have checked her equipment before relying on it. ‘Damn, I am really gonna write something up on that eyebrow. I’m getting really good at translating it. For example, this time it said ‘Hoshi, you’re a moron’,’ she thought.

T’Pol wasn’t great at reading emotions, but Hoshi obviously felt like she had failed; her despondency was practically coming off in waves. She took a step toward the ensign in what she hoped was a comforting manner. "I am sure the flaw was undetectable," she said, attempting to reassure her. It worked. Hoshi smiled.

They finished unpacking quickly and silently decided that they should begin the lessons. Hoshi walked a while away to change, layering her black, one-piece suit with a t-shirt that nearly reached her knees. Walking back, she saw that T’Pol had simply stripped off her uniform, leaving her in her tank top and boy-shorts underwear. Hoshi’s heartbeat quickened and she let out a small gasp. Her face flushed, knowing that T’Pol had heard her all too well. She considered blaming it on something else, like saying she stepped on a rock, but Hoshi knew T’Pol would see right through it. She remained silent.

Normally, Hoshi wouldn’t dare to teach a beginner in the ocean, but the dual moons of the planet made the water smooth. Hoshi waded out, pulling up the shirt inch by inch before it became wet, yet leaving barely any of her body uncovered by either t-shirt or water. She continued until the water was just below her breasts, and then quickly stripped the rest of her shirt off, balled it up, and threw it towards the beach. The water had deepened quickly, so it wasn’t a far throw to where T’Pol was standing, watching her. T’Pol caught it effortlessly, but was confused as to why Hoshi concealed her body when getting in the water. She tucked the odd behaviour into the back of her mind until she had more information. T’Pol hoped she could discover why she did that, thinking it may be connected with her strange behaviour on the bridge the other day.

Hoshi beckoned T’Pol and the tall, shapely woman began walking into the water. To most, the Vulcan’s stoic visage wouldn’t have seemed to change, but to Hoshi, who had spent an inordinate amount of time watching T’Pol, her discomfort was evident. Her jaw was set, her eyes wide, and every time she took a step her muscles tensed. To say something would be to insult the Vulcan’s pride, so Hoshi kept her mouth shut.

When T’Pol arrived, she introduced the first exercise: the backfloat. T’Pol wasn’t enthused. "I don’t believe this exercise is prudent. If I fail to master it at any time, I could asphyxiate."

Hoshi smiled. Everyone was afraid of floating on their backs for the first time. It was comforting to see that their resident alien was no exception. They rarely expressed it so eloquently, though. "Do you trust me?" Hoshi asked.

"What?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes." T’Pol knew that she trusted the ensign with her life on a daily basis, to not do so now was foolish.

“I’m going to put my hands on your back. I want you to extend your arms straight out from your body and when I say, gently kick your feet up to just below the water’s surface. My hands will be under you in case you start to sink. Okay?”

“That is acceptable,” T’Pol nodded. Hoshi slowly moved her hands to the small of T’Pol’s back and when they touched, it was as if a jolt of electricity coursed through them, manifesting as a tremble in Hoshi and T’Pol’s regular breathing rhythm being interrupted by a tiny gasp. However, they were both too busy with their own responses to see them in the other. After a moment, T’Pol remembered what Hoshi had instructed her to do and stretched out her arms. This seemed to pull the ensign slightly back into reality, but it was with a dazed tone that she told T’Pol to kick up her legs. T’Pol was surprised that the trepidation she had been experiencing was all but gone, assuaged by the simple contact of Hoshi’s hands on her bare skin. And so, she floated.

They moved down the beach a little to find the shelf Hoshi had felt coming out. When standing on the shelf, the water was just grazing their collarbones, but one step further and it was a good 2 feet above their heads. The ensign decided this was the best place to teach T’Pol how to tread water. She stepped off the shelf and demonstrated after explaining to T’Pol how to do it. She came back next to her and said, “Remember, march and clap.” T’Pol stepped off the ledge. And promptly sank.

Hoshi panicked. ‘Oh my god, I killed a commander! They’re gonna shoot me back to earth in a torpedo tube!’ she thought. Though T’Pol would deny it, she panicked also. After the initial dunk, all thoughts of marching and clapping were driven from her normally structured mind. As such, she was flailing about, trying to push herself up for air. Even though her lung capacity could easily allow her to remain under for minutes, she hadn’t gotten a proper breath because she sucked in quite a bit of water when she went under.

Hoshi jumped out and grabbed T’Pol, pulling her up for air. T’Pol gasped for breath and clung to Hoshi as the linguist swam them both to where they could comfortably stand. Still, even with her feet firmly on the ground, T’Pol didn’t relinquish her hold on the ensign. Hoshi was becoming painfully aware of their closeness. And of the way T’Pol’s arms were around her neck. And of their breasts molding together... All in all, Hoshi was becoming rapidly too comfortable. ‘She nearly drowned,’ Hoshi chastised herself, ‘Calm yourself down!’ But still, all she could think about was moving her hands farther down T’Pol’s back, past her waist...

Hoshi stepped back and grabbed T’Pol’s bicep and led her to the shore. The dry land beneath her feet seemed to shock T’Pol back into some semblance of herself. She looked at Hoshi, horrified at her lapse in control. “I must meditate,” she said, and excused her into her tent. Hoshi grabbed her clothes and walked off to dry off and change.

When she came back some time later, T’Pol was still in her tent. Hoshi didn’t know how long she usually took, but as far as she knew, T’Pol only meditated before sleeping. The swimming must’ve really rattled her if T’Pol had to meditate in the middle of the day. Well, Hoshi was hungry. She got out the food that the chef had packed for them. The ensign was unsure as to when T’Pol would come out, and she was famished. So, she fixed a plate for herself and one for T’Pol which she left in the stasis basket. She sat down on a log near their campsite. Hoshi was nearly done when T’Pol emerged, looking much more composed in her normal bodysuit. “There’s a plate in the basket,” Hoshi said. “I wasn’t sure when you’d be hungry, so I made it up.” T’Pol nodded appreciatively.

“That was very... considerate of you. Thank you, Hoshi.” T’Pol retrieved the plate and sat next to Hoshi. The ensign unconsciously decided to eat slower so as to relish the time next to the older woman. It was a few seconds before Hoshi realized that the commander had called her by her given name. That was unusual. They ate in silence, watching the sun set. Until it started to rain.

Now, this wasn’t normal earth-type rain. This was torrential golfball sized rain drops pounding hard enough to leave welts wherever it hit your skin. So naturally, the women ran. Hoshi grabbed her sleeping bag off of its spot on the ground without breaking stride and turned to head for the grove of trees a few feet behind T’Pol’s tent. T’Pol stopped when she reached the entrance of the tent and noticed that Hoshi was still running. "Ensign," T’Pol shouted so she could be heard over the rain, "the trees will not provide sufficient cover from the storm."

"Neither will the tent!" Hoshi hollered back.

"I plan to reinforce it by attaching my survival bag to the outside."

"Use mine," Hoshi offered. "It’s wet already!" She tossed it to T’Pol who caught it deftly. When Hoshi refused to concede, T’Pol considered ordering her, but decided a different method of persuasion would be more effective.

"Hoshi," she said, "I don’t want you to be hurt." The linguist was astonished. ‘A first name and something downright considerate in the same sentence? I knew she’d been more... emotional lately, but this is downright weird.’ Hoshi closed her mouth and quickly walked over to the tent where T’Pol was fastening Hoshi’s survival bag to act as an extra shield from the downpour. Hoshi helped her tie the last fastening to the tent structure and their fingers touched. T’Pol shivered, blaming the feeling coursing through her on the cold rain.

Hoshi held open the flap of the tent as T’Pol ducked in, and followed her, both still barefooted from their swim. T’Pol retrieved a towel from her duffel bag and offered it to Hoshi. She declined, politely. "It’s yours. Besides, humans stink, remember?" she grinned.

"You don’t ‘stink’, ensign." T’Pol resisted the desire to add that she found the ensign to smell quite pleasantly. She held out the towel and continued. "I have dry clothing. You do not." She pressed the towel into Hoshi’s hands and the smaller woman relented, wrapping it around herself and blotting her clothing to a state of semi-dryness. And promptly dropped the towel when T’Pol, turning sideways, reached behind her neck, unclasped her bodysuit, and pulled it off.

Apparently not noticing Hoshi’s sudden lack of dexterity, the commander folded her uniform and placed it in the corner on the side of her bag to dry. T’Pol felt around the remaining clothes on her body (causing Hoshi’s jaw to drop) and deeming her undergarments dry enough, she retrieved an emerald green silk-like pair of pajamas. She pulled them on, buttoning the shirt, and turned to face Hoshi, who by that time had regained some semblance of sanity.

Hoshi raised an eyebrow and tilted her head slightly to the side, silently questioning T’Pol’s attire choice. T’Pol found this behavior rather endearing and somewhat, though she’d never use the word, cute. It was reminiscent of her childhood friend’s pet sehlat when it wanted something. T’Pol, however, correctly interpreted Hoshi’s meaning and answered, "I find it inefficient to put on a uniform less than 1.7 hours before an acceptable... I believe the term is ‘bedtime’." Hoshi nodded understandingly and sat down on the opposite side of the tent. This movement still didn’t put much distance between them, and Hoshi couldn’t help but feel like she was cramping the older woman. It was, after all, her tent. T’Pol sat down smoothly where she stood, and as they sat in silence, both felt their thoughts turn to what could be happening on Enterprise.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (er, ship)...

The ensign came into Captain Archer’s quarters and was startled by the scene. The Captain and Commander Tucker were both in civvies, on the couch, drinking beer. ‘Are you allowed to see your Captain in civilian clothing?’ she wondered. ‘Isn’t there some kind of rule against that?’ The captain stood up. "Ensign Karasek. Those modifications to the sensor array. Successful?"

"Yes, sir," she answered. A few days ago, the Captain had told her to reprogram the sensors to they didn’t pick up local weather transmissions. Quite an odd assignment, but Celeste assumed Archer had his reasons.

"Great." Archer said to her. Turning to Trip, he added, "They have no idea," Looking back to the ensign, he continued, "You can remove them now. Nice work." The captain dismissed her and Celeste left, even more puzzled than before, if that was possible. She had no idea who the ‘they’ the captain mentioned was referring to, but if she was included, it was definitely accurate.

What she didn’t know was that the ‘they’ Archer was referring to was T’’Pol and Hoshi. And that the captain, in initial meetings with the Hintarrians, had acquired the weather forecast, so to speak, for the coming months. Evidently the Hintarrian weather systems were cyclic, repeating every 3.67 Terran months. It was a simple matter then to determine the time of the next scheduled storm at the remote location they had picked and sign the pair up for leave on that rotation. He had also, temporarily, removed all references to swimming or watersports of any kind from the Federation database. That one’d been tricky, making it so T’Pol’d never notice that they’d been there, yet storing them for reintroduction later on. He hoped T’Pol hadn’t had the time to look too hard. And of course, what good is a rainstorm if they’re staying in different tents? Hoshi had checked her equipment right before her shift on the morning of their departure. However, Trip overrode the lock on her quarters and removed several key components in the opening mechanism of the automatically unfolding tent. That way, they had mused, they’ll have to share a tent. That deduction was followed by a typically enthusiastic round of self-congratulations and back slapping.

"Jon and Trip, Starfleet officers, strikingly handsome, Cupids of the Enterprise!" Archer crowed, shortly after the door had closed.

Trip agreed. "I bet they’re cuddling in that tent right now!"

Not quite.

I got commended for a post on STF! Yay, I'm happy. The CMO/GM said that in one of my posts I used more technical medical talk than he had all 5 years of CMO-ing on www.star-fleet.com . Maybe that means I'm in line for a promotion!
: Message posted on Stardate 05042.0 at 1807 hours

: Posted by Gamemaster Troy Martin (GM) in response
to earlier message.
: : "Yes, Sir," Rioghnach
nodded. "We believe that the radiation is the cause, causing the speed of the
cells' development to increase just like the vegitation." She wasn't sure if he
understood why the cells were building up, so she explained. "Your body normally
makes cells at the same rate they naturally die, keeping a balance of sorts. The
radiation is stimulating our bodies to make them faster than they are dying, so
they are building up. The cells are increasing the blood volume by..." She
thought for a moment about a term that was easily understood. "Diluting, I
suppose, the rest of the cells. One pump of the heart is getting less of the
other cells to the tissues. This isn't hurting us yet because the build up isn't
very high, but it can, and will if we stay here long, cause thrombocytopenia,
anemia..."
: :
: : She
stopped, realizing she jumped back into techno-talk. "Less red blood cells are
getting around the body. That means the heart has to work harder to keep the
tissues supplied with oxygen. This will strain the heart and increase blood
pressure, both of which can be hazardous. Also, you will bleed longer before
enough platlets will be 'collected' to clot.
: :
"None of this needs any immediate intervention, but we should avoid sustained
excersise because it will harm the heart. Any bleeding needs treated promptly;
for now, basic first aid will do, but larger wounds must be treated by a doctor
so they can monitor blood loss. Also, they may need to stand up slower than
normal to avoid fainting. It's somewhat like being in a place with less oxygen
then you're used to, only that would get better with time. This is only going to
get worse," she said, rather ominously.
: :

: : "I'd like to suggest that this information be
presented to the rest of the crew to try and avoid further problems."
Rioghnach Cathasaigh

:
: OOC: Wow! You've
just used more technical medical terms than I've used in my 5 long years as the
CMO. Good work! ;)

~Alexandria

Current Mood: accomplished

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