Otter's Rock

For those of you who don't know, the official comic book tie-in writers (IDW) are doing a series of Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover comic books. With lots and lots of different covers with really cool cover art to entice die-hard fans to buy multiple copies of each book. Here are some icons made of the first few covers!



( 23 more icons under the cut! )

Anybody got any chess-for-beginners primers they could recommend that would help me understand the subtleties of the game at least well enough to write a fic with it?  Because I just signed up for and got the most stylishly awesome piece of art at trekreversebang this year, and it's Pike, Spock, Kirk, and Uhura against a background of a chess board and pieces.  So I'm thinking I should know something about chess to write this.

Other ficathons: bsg_remix  is done, and Remix Redux is coming along nicely.  Anyone want to beta 30k words of BSG AU on short notice, or about 10k words of SG-1 on slightly less short notice?

I'm writing a story for oc_bigbang, and that means I get art made for me.  Yay!  And it looks like I'll get the rough draft done on time, even bigger yay!  When I signed up, they asked if I had a particular actress in mind for my OC, Tora Manar.

Well.  That's a problem for me.  I have face blindness; recognizing faces is difficult for me, and so visual cues aren't at all what I write from.  I mean, even when I'm writing characters from a TV show or movie where they already have actors that I have seen many times I don't really picture them at all when I'm writing (or reading) fic.  But, you know, I thought I'd try, which has led me to a frustrating half-hour with Google Image search.  I don't want Manar to be supermodel-gorgeous; just kind of normal-looking is fine with me.  Because she is a kind of Bajoran-girl-next-door who survived the Occupation and the camps and wants to rebuild Bajor and make a better life for herself and her family.  Fairly ordinary, glass-half-full type.  One of my inspirations, back when I thought this was a romance instead of a gen story, was Lalita from Bride and Prejudice, played by Aishwarya Rai.  Now that I know it's a gen story, Lalita's refusal to accept patronization from the privileged people is still a contributor to Manar, although Manar is much less likely to point it out unless it's really big.  She's trying for a career as a Starfleet officer, she's trying to blend in and get accepted and so she's got a lot more incentive to bite her tongue.  But, you know, Aishwarya definitely has supermodel good looks that I don't want Manar to have.  But that got me started with Bollywood actresses (and also, it annoyed me that while we occasionally saw Bajorans of color in the background, I can't think of a single ep that had one with an actual speaking role), and from there several other searches, and here's what I've found.

Vega Tamotia seems to have a good face; pretty enough, but not hubba-hubba.  But her skin is a bit lighter than I described Manar's skin as being.
Karthika Nair is a bit closer, but I'm not quite sure about for some reason--maybe it's her expression in most of those pictures, she looks a bit too cynical or something.  This is Star Trek after all, and so Manar has a bit of that optimistic/Pollyannaish quality that infuses most of the Star Trek universe.
Rula Jebreal is wonderful, but a tiny bit too close to the too-gorgeous, and also possibly slightly darker than I described Manar.

Now, I've never seen any of these women act (nor read Rula's books nor seen her TV show), so this is going strictly off of pictures.  What do you guys think?  Any suggestions?

(The other main character is a Vulcan male, in that indeterminate middle age Vulcans have where they look thirty and could be anywhere from 30 to 100 years old.  He may be distantly related to Spock and to Ambassador Soval from Enterprise, with whom he shares a name.  I don't really care about what he looks like; there are thousands of white actors in the right age range to choose from, and there are probably quite a few who could do appropriate Vulcan dignity.  Besides, it's not Soval's story, it's Manar's.  He's got his own internal life, but we only ever really see glimpses of it.)

Hope of Thee (the Zombie Remix)
Author: beatrice_otter 
Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Words: 1877
Remix of: Watching Stars by cosmic_llin 
Characters: Lwaxana, Deanna, and Kestra Troi.
AN: This fic is AU for the season 7 episode "Dark Page," in which Counselor Troi finds out she had an older sister named Kestra who died when Deanna was a baby.
Summary: Don’t worry, Mother. You’ll never be alone. I’ll make sure of that.

Hope of Thee (the Zombie Remix)

( Daddy's coming home tomorrow, Kestra said. )

On My First Son
Ben Jonson

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.

Oh, could I lose all father now!  For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon ’scaped world’s and flesh’s rage,
And if no other misery, yet age!

Rest in soft peace, and asked, say, Here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such
As what he loves may never like too much.

trekreversebang is open for signups!  This is the big bang where the art comes first, and then the authors write stories about it.  I had lots of fun last year and love the story I wrote, despite the fact that my artist flaked out and I never got a finished piece of art.  They've changed the rules this year so that can't happen--the art has to be finished, not just in rough draft form, before authors can claim it.  I'm signing up and looking forward to it!trekreversebang



I don't think I'll be doing bsg_remix this year--I've had fun in the past, but I've only written one new BSG fic since doing last year's remix, which tells me that it's not where my inspiration is currently going.

What I really need to be working on is my sequel to Lieutenant Bennet's Visit, which is from Darcy's POV.  Maybe, since I have a snow and ice day, I will get working on it.

(Maybe I will work on saving all the fics I've bookmarked over the years to my computer, instead--finished Doctor Who last night, next up Battlestar Galacactica.)

First, it's the Where No Woman New Year Exchange:

Five Times Gaila and Sulu Saved Each Other.  Because Gaila and Sulu are awesome by themselves, and even more awesome together.  Even tough, independent people need saving once in awhile. Gaila and Sulu save each other from fears and insecurities, tarantulas and Starfleet ration bars, failed simulations and lost promotions. And space pirates. Twice.

1,023 Days On Earth.  What Guinan did on Earth the first time she was there (backstory for Time's Arrow I & II).  Ever wonder how Guinan got to be on a pre-space Earth?  A Black woman (or, at least, a woman who looked Black), in the late 19th Century, the toast of the town?  This is her story.  Well told, and a believable perspective for a young Guinan.

This next one isn't part of the exchange, but could easily have been.
Home.  Set between TNG and DS9. Miles and Keiko bring Molly to Japan for Shichi Go San, and to meet her grandparents.  Keiko was an interesting character, but we seldom saw any more of her than The Wife or The Mother or The Schoolteacher, and even then the focus was mainly on how Miles or the station was impacted rather than on her for herself.  This fic delves a little deeper into her perspective on her life and her choices and her relationships.  It's quiet and introspective and real and I enjoyed it.

And then one non-Star Trek fic, this one Buffy the Vampire Slayer, post-series.
Demon's Holiday.  And then he noticed a short older man in a taupe suit and eyeglasses walking into a shop that sold cheese. It's the cheese guy!

Apparently, each year, there are a series of classical concerts in London that are a Really Big Deal.  They are called the Proms, and the last one is, well, lanning says it best: "an inexplicable mix of classical music, firecrackers, horns and funny hats."

Two examples:



(I think it's funny that they didn't bother to synch up the outdoor crowd scenes, so their mouths don't go along with the words.  Also, that there are a few non-British flags being waved about in the crowd.  I think I recognized Norway and Germany.)

Also, in weird classical music news, for the first time ever on this planet, Klingon opera will be performed.

So, I don't know enough about Judaism to write the seven fics required for daysofawesome, nor do I have the time to write seven ficlets.  However, when I looked on their list of Jewish characters and saw Worf listed (on the assumption that his Human parents, Sergey and Helena Rozhenko are Jewish), I had to write something.  So, it is done now, but considering I got most of my knowledge of Jewish customs from Wikipedia, it desperately needs someone to look it over who knows more about this than I do and can catch a) any errors and b) anything unintentionally offensive.  Knowledge of Star Trek a plus.

ETA: Found!

Title: A Marriage of True Minds
Artist:
Author: beatrice_otter
Rating: G
Genre/Pairing: Sarek/Amanda
Word Count: 6,080
Warnings: none
Summary: A day in the life of Sarek and Amanda on Vulcan, when Spock was young.
Betaed by: medie 

( Amanda glanced at the elegant timepiece on the wall and suppressed a sigh. )