Category Archives: Stream of Thought

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I’ve seen a lot of posts lately about how hard writing is on my dash. It’s true it can be hard – very hard. But there are good days too.

I don’t talk specifics about my original writing here, as I kinda want to keep fan/personal!Me, and any potential future professional!Me separate. However, I do vague blog sometimes and here’s another one and with a major win.

I finished self-edits of my book today!!

It’s been a journey. I got the idea for this series October 2015. I said “I’m going to do that for NaNo” and my friend told me I was nuts, as there was no way I could plan it in time – but I did. I wrote the 50k in November, and then finished the draft over the next few months. I then wrote Book Two, and half of Book Three, and then November 2016… life happened. I will spare you the whole saga but basically fast forward to January this year and I picked it up again.

A complete reboot, rewritten from the ground up. The general plot is still basically the same but everything about the character arcs, to the details of the world, to (hopefully) how well it’s written is all new. Applying everything I have learned in the last 8 years to do a better job this time.

258 hours – that’s how long it took me to analyse, replot, rewrite, revise and edit. Basically 4 months because I took April off.

Anyway! This is a positive. This is a success. This is a giant step forward and I wish to share that brief shining moment of positivity. It can happen.

I have my beta and editor booked for next month. So the next task is to analyse and replot Book Two!

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So I saw a YT video the other day and there was a mention of the “5am club” and I remembered that was a thing. People trying to get up early so they can do more stuff.

And this is yet another example of me doing things wrong 😛

You see I am up at 5am a LOT. I woke up barely past 4am this morning. Getting up isn’t the problem. Doing things? Yeeeeeah that’s where I am falling down. I did read some book this morning (I’m trying to read more). Maybe on a normal day I might have eventually started on the book edits. I often get to my desk around 7am when I have been up for ages. However it is Wednesday and “chore day” and so I have cleaning on my schedule and not a lot else. As I don’t wish to be a bad neighbour I refuse to run the vacuum before 9am and therefore I am stuck in “waiting mode”.

Do you guys suffer “waiting mode”? It’s the ‘I have a thing later so can’t do anything now’ type. It’s very dumb.

Perhaps my next challenge shall be to turn my early wake-ups into something a shade more productive? I mean if I am awake anyway…

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Ok so now the Librarians prompts are out I have all four for the summer:

– Librarians (July)

– AU August (funnily enough August lol)

– Timeless Fest (end of August)

– Star Trek FemSlash (start of September)

And between them I have 20-25 prompts picked out that I think have potential. It’s a lot, more than I can do I am sure especially because I have trouble starting.

Last year I got a piano. Not to take it ‘seriously’ like I do with art or writing but I still want to learn and get better, because I want to play cool pieces. I find music soothing. Anyway I fell off doing regular practice and then just didn’t restart. It’s been something I have been screaming at myself for. Every week I am like “need to do piano practice!!!” and then just not. On June 1st I was like ok let’s make it a goal/targeted priority and I have now done it twice, on the two days of the month.

There’s like this innate resistance. It’s breaking out of inertia I guess? Like the old “rolling stone” keeps on rolling, but getting it moving is oh boy the hard part.

Anyway I feel like this might be my issue with art. There are studies and practice exercises I need to do. Like with the piano every week I scream about doing it, and then just don’t. But I feel like if I can just *start* then I might be able to keep going. It’s taking that first step.

Projects/deadlines break me out of that but prompt events struggle as the deadline is too soft. Nobody notices or cares if I don’t submit. It’s not like an exchange or anything. That’s why “Year of the OTP” just never happened.

So I don’t know how it’s going to go. We’ll see I guess. I hope I will make some cool stuff but breaking that inertia – that’s the challenge.

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Watching CSI: Vegas and it’s the episode Grace Note and damn Catherine looks good. The all black, leather jacket, feeling very secret agent. Love it!

I would love to find a gif but tumblr is thus far failing me.

Seriously though it was just so cool how Catherine shows up and dismisses the massage ladies, and has a ‘borrowed’ file to blackmail the dude 😍

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So the prompts for Librarians prompt month come out Saturday and I’m so excited 😁

I never EVER make everything I want but you know how Flynn Carsen goes “I do not know and isn’t that wonderful?” because he adores not knowing things, as it’s an opportunity to learn. Well I kinda feel the same way about potential projects. They may not get made but isn’t it wonderful to consider them? To feel that spark of inspiration? That creative buzz?

AU August is coming up and I may.. /cough .. have claimed a couple of prompts for the Timeless fest.

This could all go exactly the way of “Year of the OTP” where I added a dozen or so ideas to my list and never actually made anything. Spoons are an elusive boon but maybe one day.

There’s always hope 🙂

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sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

For the ship ask: Helen/John/James and Helen/Nikola.

Thanks for the ask!

Helen/John/James
Let’s plumb the depths of my shoddy memory. I’m relatively certain I had got the DVD before the season 1 finale but it’s possible I hadn’t. Either way I started watching on YouTube which was rough. I wasn’t sure I would like the show and wanted to try it out.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I decided I liked it by the time I got to the episode “the Five” which was obviously Nikola’s debut but that first impression wasn’t the best. It was John that utterly intrigued me. Him talking with Ashley, the recollections of Oxford, the whole wrestling with darkness thing. “Shall we talk here or here” as he teleported various places like a volcano. How he put a fist through Nikola’s chest and then teleported away. I can’t remember if it was with a bow of if my memory has added that. Either way he had my attention!

The whole quasi-immortal “for all eternity” thing. John and Helen for 95% of the time, it’s a bit like “I wish I could quit you” but they are just never quite done with each other. It’s so painful.

And then came along Revelations – in which my obsession was sealed. The chemistry/energy between John and James could be cut with a knife (ha! no pun intended). Every interaction they had was just loaded with meaning. The way John gripped James’ jacket when they were in the ruins. The way he almost tenderly let James take his shoulder to help him walk. The way they had real damn hearteyes when peering at each other over drinks in Helen’s office.

Now my brain for all of 30 seconds wasn’t sure what to do with this. How could there be Helen + John, and John + James? Then lightbulb and I was like Helen + John + James. The friendship between Helen and James was clear, there was obviously a great deal of fondness. I think it wasn’t until I started thinking about them more/writing fanfic that I really ‘got them’. Which makes sense sadly because James did NOT get enough screen time. Friends to lovers is my absolute favourite so truly an awesome ship 🙁 But yeah truly an OT3 of equals. Each side as compelling as the others.

This OT3 has so much going for it. As I said earlier the whole “quasi immortality” thing – it’s not just a love that lasts a lifetime, but multiple lifetimes. How does that work as the world changes, and they change with it? Add on that James didn’t always (I headcanon eventually did) have that ‘quasi immortality’ and so he had his suit but felt the years more than the others. There’s the whole era into which they were born, with Helen being ahead of her time/independent, and homosexuality being illegal. Then of course there is the whole Ripper thing. I left that until last because I think the OT3 is compelling without it, but that as well just adds another layer and I am obsessed.

I’ve sort of come back a little from the real depths of my obsession. Most of this is because I’m not writing fanfic anymore. If I was still immersing myself in this OT3 I’d be as rabid as ever. They truly do have a hold on my heart. I have so many drawings I would love to do for them one day. I just have a spoons issue in getting stuff done :/

So yes I 110% ship them.

Helen/Nikola
As I said above Nikola’s introduction wasn’t the best. Also like with James I guess once I started writing and thinking about him more, I grew to understand him better. He has a hell of an ego but he isn’t half as self-serving as he pretends. He’s actually very ride or die for his friends. He’ll never say the words, but his ‘love language’ if you like is acts of service. He’ll grumble, and complain, and be insulting and snarky, but there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his friends. This is sort of at odds with the whole “guess I’ll have to kill you then” thing with Helen in Rome but I do think he wasn’t all that serious about it. He’d had 60 years without his friends to stop him from going too far. I think Nikola likes to push it, likes to see how much he can get away with before his friends call him on his bullshit.

Nikola flirts outrageously because I think that’s another way to show he cares. Another repeated line in my fics is that it’s a way to show Helen respect, because she bristled so much in the 19th century when they met about how she wasn’t some delicate fragile flower. Treating Helen normally, and not like spun glass, is just another way to show friendship.

Anyway! I think in most of my fics I included some kind of line about how if James and John weren’t around, then maybe eventually Helen would choose Nikola. They have one of those relationships where they are family. They definitely have a bond. I don’t ship them, I do prefer them as friends but I don’t feel defensive or like my OT3 is threatened by the possibility of Helen and Nikola.

Regardless Helen and Nikola will always be a part of each others lives. They are important to one another. I just don’t ship them romantically.

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purlturtle asked:

for the ship ask, since I didn’t go with them: B’elanna and Seven?

I have to be honest I hadn’t really thought about them too much until I saw some B7 posts. They interact so rarely 🙁

But the more I thought about them, and the more posts I read – I’m sorry I know I should link them but I’m not sure I reblogged them (I know, I’m mad at myself too) so they are long lost and tumblr search is garbage. Anyway, it just seemed to make sense.

They are outsiders – half Klingon, half Borg. Both struggle with that dual nature and that they don’t fit. For B’elanna she’s too human to be Klingon, but too Klingon to be human. I wonder sometimes how much of her famous “klingon temper” is performative, and more out of frustration than anything. One of the amazing metas I read talked about klingon courting, and how B’elanna was a poet (which is the role males take in klingon society).

As someone who has internalised a lot of societal bullshit, I feel like B’elanna doesn’t accept herself. It’s hard to say given when Voyager aired whether it was so heteronormative due to the time period, or if those attitudes do still have hold of parts of the Federation. Given how different B’elanna feels because of her heritage, I wonder if she didn’t do any sort of self-analysis, and pushed away anything that didn’t fit the very traditional mould, as she wants to be ‘normal’ (in her eyes) in one area. Hence clinging to her relationship with Tom even though it doesn’t seem to make her happy. Like she doesn’t think relationships should be happy.

Contrast this with Seven who as Borg I’d argue had no real concept of gender or sexuality – they were Borg and that’s all that mattered. But her guide to all things ‘human’ was the Doctor who was very cis hetero in what he pushed on her. I’d say she tried to adapt, thinking what the Doctor said was the way, only to learn later she had some stuff to unlearn. That the world wasn’t that rigid and she could make her own choices. That they weren’t wrong – that there is no wrong, only preference.

I would love to explore a concept of how B’elanna and Seven could have worked while still on Voyager. They definitely had their moments. I love how B’elanna respected Seven enough to be honest. There was that exchange where B’elanna told Seven she was rude but it was without judgement. Or when they talked about going back to Earth and B’elanna pointed out as a Marquis she wouldn’t be welcome either, aligning herself with Seven.

However, I feel that anything more than friendship with them is most likely to evolve post-return. We don’t know I think for sure (possibly novels covered it, but I don’t know how ‘canon’ they are?) what happened to B’elanna. I personally headcanon that she didn’t rejoin StarFleet but that Tom did. Instead B’elanna moved into some kind of R&D engineering because she is brilliant. At the same time we know that Seven started drifting and ended up with the Fenris Rangers. I feel like B’elanna and Tom’s marriage wouldn’t survive the long-distance, the pressure from Tom’s family, their different career goals etc. I think it’s possible they had a second “let’s stay together” child, and then realised they worked better as co-parents/friends.

Also I feel like B’elanna, away from Voyager, and faced with bringing up another part-klingon (or two), and as all good parents do wanting better for her kids, finally had the space and the inclination to do a little soul-searching. I think the Voyager crew maintained some sporadic contact. We know Harry gave Seven a model of Voyager. So B’elanna hearing Seven is in the sector and going “hey want to get drinks” is perfectly plausible. Not as a date, just as friends catching up, but then they talk (and drink) and they do have a lot in common. Going back to what I said at the start about not fitting in this world, not being any one thing, and so a foot in both camps and at home in none.

I can’t see them as a “happy ever after” type romance. I feel it would be more like “sometimes girlfriends” as everytime they are on the same ship/planet they’d hook up. Not serious, and not exclusive, but over time it becomes perhaps one of the more stable and long-term relationships that either of them ever have. They don’t live together, but if anything happens they know they can call, and the other will be there no questions asked.

So yeah I ship them.

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You know what I am still stuck on how the time travel in the Timeless movie just does not make sense.

My understanding of it pre-movie was that if either Time Machine went back it created some kind of temporal tunnel. However much time they spent in the past, passed in the present. This ‘being out of time’ is what enabled them to keep their memories. I had thought though that memories was all it was. Because if they kept their original body then what happened to the body of the new timeline? Wouldn’t there be two of them?

Everytime they go back it’s to the past of the present timeline – not the past of their original timeline. So, I don’t know, pick a change – that female Sherlock Holmes. Because they changed things she became a leader of women’s suffrage. If they went back and saw her again a year or two later, it would be on this new path, not her original one.

So going back to give Flynn the journal and have it kickstart the whole thing makes zero sense. The journal that they gave him would contradict anything he knew about history – to him in their past it would already have been changed. Also it looked like the journal future Lucy handed over which makes it a lie. It talks of a future that they never lived (the relationship). Which makes it kind of a paradox in itself because how can they have this relic from a future that never was?

I always figured that the reason they returned to the bunker was that nothing they changed in the past, fundamentally altered the course of their lives. So they still got recruited for the mission. Surely though with such big changes like Jessica having been alive again, then that might not have been the case? Could they have ever returned from a trip and had Agent Christopher be “who the hell are you?” to one of them because they never got recruited? How would that even work as Agent Christopher would have remembered whomever they had recruited going on the trip, what would have happened to the ‘new guy’?

I’ve always been a little iffy on how the world changes / Agent Christopher remembers the new history, but somehow still knows where they have gone in time. I do struggle with how they still go when it wasn’t really them, it was the them in the world that they created as well.

They might have explained this in the opening episode? Some kind of temporal entanglement maybe? I’m just picturing the new version of them from the changed timeline, almost being piloted like zombies. They are jumping but don’t know why. They strap in and then when the machine jumps, all machines sort of combine/overlay/become one. Of course this doesn’t explain how a person can be scrubbed from existence. Like they wiped Amy out yeah? Well what if it had been Lucy? On returning to the present would she just fade like dust? Or would she – like the journal – somehow still exist as a relic out of time? Protected because she exists in the past, so she has to exist in the present.

That still does not explain how they never went to Chinatown. I do not understand how Rufus never went and is still alive, and yet somehow Carol and Nicholas are still dead. Or how if it never happened Jia bears marks of it on her body. As I said if they aren’t in the bodies of the new changed world, then why aren’t there two of them?

I told you I’m going to fry my brain. I woke up at 5am and started writing this post. It’s been bugging me all night. I could continue. There is so much that just does not make sense. It’s aggravating /sigh. But I will leave it there for now.

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Ok Episode Two time of the Timeless movie.

Just realised I probably should have said I’m not a Wyatt fan, and I like Flynn and Lucy upfront. Oh well.

I don’t think I’m ever not going to be stuck on all the paradoxes. Episode One is just… no sense, logic is not found. I get that time travel is like that but I think it made sense in season one.

Right rambles!

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Ok buckle up. I just realised that I never actually watched the Timeless movie. So I’m going to watch and live ramble.

I wrote a fic theorising on how they managed to time travel within their own lifetime when it wasn’t supposed to be possible. Like a post-season 2 fic.

Ok anyway starting rambles! Episode One.

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