IT'S TURKEY EGG SEASON đ
Winter: -Does winterish things-
The Northeast: "HOW DARE YOU???"
Me, while defrosting: "My characters shall also suffer this sub-zero misery."
"You're gonna have to do better than that. If you come after me one more time, I'm coming back for the rest of this tree."
Once Upon a Time - Season 1, Episode 2: The Thing You Love Most (2011)
I will not write an AU with Airiam and Seven. Or Michael and Nhan.
I WILL NOT.
....yet đ©
I will not start another Star Trek series until I am done writing my story and my fics because I can only handle one hyperfixation at a time and if I'm gonna be hyperfixated I'm at least gonna get a completed original fic out of it, dammit.
One of my favorite aspects of writing characters is really trying to get into how their minds might work--and when it comes to pairings, I greatly enjoy making something out of nothing.
Prior to 2023, I wasn't a Star Trek fan. I had seen the newer movies, and as a lifelong sci-fi nerd, they were fun to watch, but I always preferred Stargate and Farscape. I've historically been one to connect with characters who are "different"--Seven, Scorpius, Airiam, Saru--and I was in the midst of a particularly bad mental health spiral when I happened to turn on Star Trek: Picard. Seven of Nine was immediately someone that piqued my interest, not only because she was canonically LGBTQ, but because she was clearly someone that had a backstory. This led me to Voyager, because I wanted to see that backstory.
Shipping Janeway and Seven dragged me out of a 6 year writing hiatus, and I started working on a fanfic, though I never intended to post it, and I never finished it.
In 2024, I started Discovery, and was completely unprepared for how much S2E09 would mess me up. I'm a sucker for a tragic character on a good day. Make it a character we didn't know much about, then add an emotional scene between her and the female lead who barely ever interacted and apparently this is all it takes--that and being a bit grouchy about rare pair voids. For the first time since 2017 I was able to not only write something, but FINISH writing it. And then write and finish five more. More than that, I was actually happy with how they turned out, and how my writing evolved as they went from a one-shot to the longest thing I'd ever written.
Sometimes it seemed strange to Burnham, feeling that Airiam was beautiful. She suspected not everyone did, that they might see Michael as defective or faulty for feeling that way about someoneâsome thingâlike that. She knew from the outside it was easy to forget Airiam had once been human, had once looked just like every other human aboard Discovery, but they only ever saw the augmentations the Commander couldn't hide beneath the trim navy and silver Starfleet uniform. They couldn't see the rest, the places where metal and machine fused into the organic remnants of a woman who had lost far more than just her life.
Brains are weird, and they latch onto weird things. As terrible as I consider Discovery overall, I can't complain about the fact that it was able to bring something back to me I hadn't been able to do in many years. The fact that it has now also translated into letting me write my own original fiction again, and allowed me to get back into the HABIT of writing again, is something I will be forever weirdly grateful for. The last time I finished an original piece was 2007. I'm looking forward to changing that next month <3
The misery of rare characters is being over here trying to fill some of the void but some nights I just want to read someone else's versions but then I remember I'm writing them because so few others are doing it đ«
âWhat happened to your truck?â
The woman leaned a bit, like sheâd just noticed the damage.
âDunno,â she answered, leaning back with a frown. âFound it that way.â
Taryn dropped the bag in the bed, then clapped the dust from her palms.
âLooks like an animal got it.â
The woman shrugged.
âSâpose it does,â she said.
âSome kinda grizzly?â Taryn asked, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking one hip out to the side.
âCould be.â
âYou donât seem real concerned,â Taryn remarked with a lopsided smirk.
The woman shrugged again.
âNot my truck.â
Taryn didnât say anything more for a moment, the pair of them studying the scrapes. She glanced over just once to get a glimpse of the woman, of the way she tilted her head like in thought. She should leave it alone. But she pushed anyway.
âYou got cameras at your place?â
The change in the woman was immediate. Her head snapped around. Her face became edgy and hard.
âWhy?â she demanded.
Taryn wasnât ready for the sharp note of suspicion.
âYou got a grizzly you probâly should know,â she explained. âWhat if it comes after you?â
The woman seemed to relax. She pulled the keys out of her pocket and spun the ring once around a finger. It landed in her palm and she closed it.
âAinât got grizzlies up there,â she said, and this time, she seemed almost to chuckle.
âThis whole areaâs got grizzlies,â Taryn countered. She waved toward the store. âMy boss hit one just last week.â
Another shrug.
âWonât hit any grizzlies drivinâ up there.â
Taryn raised her brows and gave up.
âThanks for loadinâ me up,â said the woman, and she tossed out a light smirk and pulled on the door handle. Taryn watched as she climbed into the seat, flinching a bit when the door clattered shut. The woman looked small as she leaned out the window and glanced back at her. âSee you next week.â
The truck choked for a second and then roared back to life. Black smoke spat out of the tailpipe. Taryn backed up a step, waving the cloud out of her face.
âYeah,â she called out over the ruckus. âIâll be here like always.â
The woman nodded, then rolled up the window. The truck clunked into gear and lurched forward. It grumbled when she reached the hill at the end of the driveway, then splashed through the pothole on the shoulder. Tarynâs eyes followed it until it disappeared behind the bend in the road, and only when the sound of its engine faded back into silence did she turn back to the mill to close up.
âPeople are staring,â Judith choked out, her mouth going dry. âForget about them,â Lyris replied, steering Judith's head back to her shoulder. âYou say that like itâs easy,â Judith muttered, even as she felt herself falling back into the strange safety of the embrace. âItâs hard not to wonder what theyâre seeing.â âYou're beautiful, and Iâm different,â Lyris said, sounding more terse this time. The gruff timbre of her voice rumbled through every point of contact, a formidable cadence that suggested she wasnât entirely unaffected by Judithâs admission. âThey're going to stare because they don't understand.â
Me reading anything anyone has written about Airiam. Also people commenting about what I write about Airiam đ
When a fic doesnât fit my head canons but itâs well-written
Graphic designer and aspiring author of LGBTQ sci-fi, fantasy, & romance. Faithfully defending my pet turkeys from the local homesteaders. Probably still mad about Airiam. AO3: AdelineIsermanJaneway x Seven | Michael x Airiam | Sam x Janet | SwanQueen Star Trek: Discovery | Star Trek: Voyager | Stargate: SG-1 | Stargate: Atlantis | Farscape | Once Upon a Time
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