Reviewer: Lil black dog Signed [Report This]
Date: 07 Dec 2011 15:27 Title: Chapter 1

Hah jespah!  I figured these would all be sad, introspection pieces, so was delighted to see this.  I'm learning to expect the unexpected from you. ;-)

Of all the non-TOS series, ENT is probably the one in which I've seen the most episodes, so I'm somewhat familiar with these characters.

I admit to being a little shocked at Hoshi's actions at first - she always seemed so meek and proper to me - a regular goody-two-shoes - so I loved the explanation of the anomaly that caused her to act out of character.  Wow; if such a tiny anomaly could cause that kind of behavior, I'd hate to see what a full-fledged inundation with one could drive her to. ;-)

All in all, a great bit of light-hearted fun to lighten the tension of a very heavy topic. Kudos!

Author's Response:

Thank you! I am very much a contrarian and I suppose it is coming out with these.

The first thing I thought of when I read the subject for the challenge was stunned silence/slow burn and it kinda flowed from that.

I also wanted the anomaly to give her, I suppose, a bit of a goose, shaking her up in a way and making it so that her thought process would jump the track - and then wouldn't come back for a few days. We have all sorts of bodily electrical impulses going on. Whack one out of alignment, and perhaps something strange happens ...? ;)

Reviewer: Nerys Ghemor Signed [Report This]
Date: 04 Dec 2011 04:01 Title: Chapter 1

Hmmm...I'm not sure whether I have a sick mind or something, but I admit I groaned when, after reading the story, I realized how the title could have a very bawdy meaning.  As a personal preference, I'm afraid "bawdy" just isn't my cup of tea.

That said, I did think the birthmark prank was funny, and it kind of reminded me of the time someone played a prank on Odo by moving all of his furniture a centimeter or so to the left

I was not impressed by Archer's immediate jump to conclusions without actually investigating the source of the porno-prank.  That said, that kind of outburst was very much in character and shows the exact trait that was one of my reasons for giving up on Archer and ENT while it was on the air, so you do get credit for being true to the character as we saw him, in all his immaturity.

Overall, the dialogue is witty and does reflect the lax discipline we saw on ENT, and that aspect was amusing.

I have a few technical recommendations for you that may improve readability.  On Memory Alpha, Tucker's nickname is always spelled as "Trip" with one "p," not two, and "transporters" shouldn't be capitalized when you're referring to transporters in general as opposed to, say, "Transporter Room 2."  There were also a few places, due to the abrupt scene changes, where I got confused as to who was speaking.  I would recommend that each time you change scenes, you make sure to name each character again once before going back to pronouns.  That way the reader can be sure of what's going on.

I certainly don't mean that as an attack or anything, so I hope you won't take anything negative or unpleasant away from that.  Overall, there were definitely some strong points even though it wasn't my kind of story.

Author's Response:

I appreciate it!

I spell it Tripp even though I know it's Trip in canon (I have an ex who went by Tripp; it's an homage to a guy I have some fond recollections of; plus I just despise the single P in writing. It just looks odd to me). And I've been back and forth on capitalizing transporter (I also used to capitalize communicator, etc.) and am coming to the mind that it's more distracting than anything else.

Reviewer: Gul Rejal Signed [Report This]
Date: 20 Nov 2011 05:45 Title: Chapter 1

Hoshi messed up bad! LOL The consequences of her prank could be really serious and for completely innocent people. Anomaly or no anomaly, I wonder how she'll feel after all that. Travis had to practically force her to admit it had been her.

And when he looked at her after being pressed by Archer to tell who he had helped--it should tell everyone then and there that it was her.

How long does the personality change last?

But, can you imagine what would happen if the anomaly could be controlled and end up in wrong hands? O_O

Author's Response:

When I first wrote this, I put it aside for a while and then came back to it and realized that what she had done was really out of character for her. It has to result in a recovery of some sort, given the date and canon, so it can't be a permanent change.

What I was analogizing to was TIAs (trans-ischemic attacks), which are kind of like mini-strokes, but they don't come with a personality change. But they are very fast, and you don't get any appreciable change in fitness, like you do with a full-blown stroke (e. g. paralysis, etc.). Hence I am thinking she gets affected for a few days, particularly seeing as she's not exactly remorseful at the end. I don't think that, in canon, anyone was whacked with such a tiny anomaly, so it got me to thinking about all of the various electrical impulses in our bodies, and what could potentially happen if they were briefly disturbed.

Reviewer: Ln X Signed [Report This]
Date: 18 Nov 2011 12:42 Title: Chapter 1

Evilly wicked! Nice one jespah! You did the shocked scene really well! Gave me a big laugh!

Author's Response:

Thank you very much!