[Report This]Date: 21 May 2015 03:37 Title: The Groom Awaits His Bride
*Wild applause from Team I/M*
Imagining winning an Academy Award combined with the Nobel Peace Prize, and you basically have a third of the excitement and spectacular applause this inspired in my head. I clapped at the first step, I LOLed about the nephews and their throwing things (nice joke!), and I smiled when it was all said and done.
Loved. It.
Date: 20 May 2015 17:55 Title: The Bet
This is so just right. It is warm old comfortable slippers to read Be'lanna, Harry and Tom and to have them all in sparkling form in character. What I particularly like is the fact it is in fact a very natural bet that I'd imagine Harry and Tom making years ago. Especially maybe before they got to understand Icheb in a relationship and know Maren. I bet that before Maren, there wasn't much of a chance Icheb having a relationship, which is one reason why throwing up rebound B'Elanna comment works so fittingly. Also, once Icheb gets into the relationship more and it looks like lasting, after a time, I'd imagine Tom wouldn't have made so callous a bet. And poor Harry, the fact he takes a bet but doesn't find love, that's heart breaking really. But wonderful all over.
Date: 20 May 2015 16:01 Title: The Bet
Yay, Voyager crew! Great to see Tom, Harry and B'Elanna again and to get a glimpse into how they would feel about this timeline. So are we going to see Harry pay up in these ficlets or are you going to cut us off before we walk down the aisle? Either way, can't wait to see what happens next!
Date: 20 May 2015 13:02 Title: The Bet
Better hurry up there, Harry ole sport!
I love how the relationship was the subject of a wager.
Author's Response:
I can't see Icheb's having a successful romantic relationship while Harry remains unwillingly single NOT being a topic of some gossip and amusement on the part of the VOY crew.
Besides, Harry is just such an easy target.
Date: 20 May 2015 08:39 Title: The Bet
Now this is giving me jitters. Not married yet? I don't like this kind of foreshadowing. Could anything derail this train of perfect happiness? If this were a regular Tesseract story, I'd say, more probable than not. But not here, this is a happy-go lucky AU. Surely everything will be just fine.
Author's Response:
I'm genuinely concerned about you, CeJay -- I seem to have scarred you for life.
Not everything in this universe is perfect, but the idea is to give the kids a shot at happiness. Harry's just trying to convince himself he still has time to win the bet. Not likely, Mr. Kim.
Date: 20 May 2015 04:05 Title: The Bet
I LOLed so hard at this. A beautiful rendering of the dynamics between classic VOY stars. Tom was on full diplay and he was great. Great and funny entry, it's gonna be tough to beat.
Author's Response:
Glad you liked it!
Date: 18 May 2015 20:03 Title: Unity and Perfection
Awww .... If only it were all true and not just a lovely dream in Prime Maren's imagination or, you know, alternate universe. Same difference.
The ring sounds pretty cool. Only a total genius would be able to appreciate fractal patterns based on a mathematical representation of a Beethoven sonata. Wow, these guys are serious geeks. Love'em.
Author's Response:
*raises hand awkwardly* Um ... I appreciate fractal patterns based on mathematical representations of music (although I definitely can't identify them by sight!). I'm not sure if I'm a total genius (it's possible I killed too many brain cells in college for that), but I'm definitely a serious geek.
I'm glad you love them, and I'm glad you liked their happy little moment. Icheb and Maren wish this had been the way it all went down, too. Then they'd be facing the DQ together as a married couple, not as a pair of bickering, broken children.
Date: 18 May 2015 15:41 Title: Unity and Perfection
It was indeed perfect. Sometimes, Icheb just doesn't get humans. Sometimes, he doesn't get the emotional side of things given how stunted his emotional growth was. However, he gets Maren and she gets him. And that's why the ring is safe for her workplace environment, that's why it is not decorated with flowery lurid patterns but with fractals depicting her favourite piece of music. Because he gets her, gets that as much as she would love him and his ring, if she couldn't wear it in an enginerring lab or room she wouldn't. So he doesn't put her in that position. And if the aestetic of certain romantic overtures are a miss to him, he can understand music especially classical for the mathematical purity of it and like Maren sees nothing more beautiful than fractal patterns. Also the fact that they both can read it so easily is a testament to their skill and knowledge and an acknowledgement on Icheb's part to Maren's intellect.
And the thing is, he would have done this in the real world. He would have done this in TESS canon but because of his condition and because he made the decision he thought would serve to protect Maren at the time because he got her enough to know that she would stick with him no matter the life sentence handed down. Wonderful.
Of course, it is missing JQ in his leaderhosen but I suppose something must show up in Day 3 of the challenge.
Author's Response:
Well, he DID do this in the "real" world (I love that you call it that!). He did end up proposing to her with this very ring, it's just that they never made it to Risa and he proposed in the infirmary at Starbase 12 instead. Even now, she still has the ring. (It's actually on board the Tesseract.)
But as for the rest, as usual, you're absolutely right and you really understand them so well. It makes my heart happy.
As for JQ and his Lederhosen ... well, there's always the wedding toast ... but don't hold your breath. This is Icheb's and Maren's moment! (But feel free to write your own version of events, you mad shipper, you! ;-) )
Date: 18 May 2015 12:35 Title: Unity and Perfection
Of course he would know how to do this perfectly. Sweet and utterly right.
Author's Response:
They fundamentally understand each other. It's a shame they ever parted, in my opinion. Despite all evidence to the contrary, deep down, I'm an I/M shipper at heart. <3
Date: 18 May 2015 12:32 Title: Unity and Perfection
Awww! Icheb is such a romantic. I love the Beethoven sonata written in math - so perfect for Maren. I know I've said this so many times but you do such a wonderful job of creating these characters that when I read this I just knew this was exactly what Icheb would do and that it fit perfectly for Maren. A really touching engagement. Now, more happiness!
Author's Response:
Thank you so much, Joel! Icheb is a bit of a romantic at heart -- he just doesn't always know exactly how to show it. Luckily, Maren makes it easy for him -- she likes the same things he does. They're called "The Collective" for a reason. :)
Date: 18 May 2015 04:17 Title: Unity and Perfection
Is it bad that I know you well enough that I'm waiting for SOMETHING HORRIBLE TO HAPPEN? (Nothing horrible had better happen, dammit! EVERYONE LIVES, ROSE.) But I love it. I love the ring, it's so thoughtful, and I love the sheer sweetness Icheb and Maren show each other here, and just. Yes.
Author's Response:
I keep waiting for something horrible to happen, too, and I'm the one writing it. It feels weird to allow myself to NOT hurt them for once. I think there's something wrong with me!
Anyway, I'm so glad you enjoyed it. These two ARE sweet when they're not being tortured (and sometimes even when they are). I look forward to the day when I can indulge in a bit of this sweetness in the Tesseract story. Happier times are coming (and then more horrible ones, and then happy ones again), but it's going to take a while. It's a long, hard road these two have to travel.
Date: 18 May 2015 04:04 Title: Unity and Perfection
*FIST PUMPS OF FURY*
And Captain Picard said ... Engaged!
Payoff. Sweet, sweet payoff. Loved every second of this. Maren's precise words, Icheb's question, the Risa tourists doing what anyone would do (true love -- that's right, TRUE LOVE) in such a moment, all rendered with perfection.
Icheb, you done good. Now close the deal. *waits impatiently for wedding*
Author's Response:
First the crying kittens, now fury? What am I doing wrong?!?!?!
In all seriousness, I'm glad you liked it. As the undisputed #1 I/M shipper and team captain, it means a lot that you enjoyed the moment, even though it didn't end up happening this way in the "real" Tesseract universe. This, though ... this was the plan.
At least since this is the happy AU, you won't have to wait much longer for the wedding. :)
Date: 17 May 2015 21:20 Title: The Peak
It is unfortunate that the 500 word count severely hampered this scene. Obviously, you had to cut something out in order to make it work but what ended up on the editing room floor really lends a different perspective to this:
Maren stood dumbfounded before Icheb, alternating between looking at him, the ring, the long view down, the gathering speactators. Oh her answer should have been immediate. It should have been yes. But Maren Siobhan O'Connor who could do quantum physics trigonometry in the blink of an eye needed a moment to process this question and her answer. Oh she had ran variables in her head before, dreams and whims but even then still with her grounded mentality, even then knowing and weighing up the pros the cons, the probabilities, the parameters of success and failure.
Perhaps a part of her always thought or even feared that Icheb who despite being a former borg drone able to love might not be able to actually propose, might not be able to commit himself to a lasting, loving relationship, to dare himself and themselves to be happy.
Oh maybe she could imagine Icheb proposing but only because of custom and expectation and going through the motions of the social experiment of their relationship. Yet here was the validation that there relationship was real and so much more. His eyes were borg nano enhanced but they held nothing but love in them for Maren. It was all too unbearably romantic and loving and hard and painful and suffocating.
The crowd shifted uncomfortably. The proposal was not being met with an answer and even Icheb now began to fear what her answer was. A silence fell upon the peak. Nothing stirred but the wind in Maren's hair and then ... and then there was a yodel from some distance below.
Maren turned to its direction. it couldn't be! Could it? "Yodel fucking a ydel yay hoo!" came the answer to the affirmative. John Quigley!
She shouted towards him. "JQ? John!" Her heart fluttered, broke, recoalesced and in one moment. Icheb's fractured like a warp core breach. Climbing the steep incline was JQ and sporting his Lederhosen just for the occasion.
"Maren!" he shouted.
Icheb balled his hand into a fist as he snatched it and the ring back from Maren's reach. Under his breath he cursed JQ and himself. "JQ!" Why had he told him? Why had he poured out his heart and intentions to the one man who could love Maren in the same way he did. Damn it all.
"I'm sorry Icheb ... I ... I .... I can't." With that Maren turned and ran towards JQ. Her mind and her heart finally and at long last made. She ran towards him not caring for the rocks that might trip her. Not caring for the ice and snow. Only caring to reach John's arms.
Icheb wanted to cry but his enhanced eyes would not permit him. Instead, he crushed the ring in the palm of his hand and then, nano enhanced vocal cords lifted the mountain top as Icheb roared, "QUIGLEY!"
The mountian shook. All stopped to stare in awe and terror at Icheb. Borg accrutements sprouted from his cheek as he allowed his borg drone self to reassert. But it was already too late. The mountain shake had already put in motion a calamity of horrors as the rocks tumbled downward towards John. Quigley deftly avoided the hurtling rocks but he looked up in horror as Maren stood transfixed in terror looking back at the monster she had unleashed in Icheb. Maren gave aquick look back to John and reached out a hand that would never span the great distance between them but saaid everything of their doomed love.
And then the snows under her feet gave way and rushed down the mountain side. their love swallowed by a torrent of rage and a mountainside avalanche.
There. Fixed it for you. We return things to (hyper) normal proceedings.
Awww. But seriously. They did it. They climbed the mountain, the tortuous path, overcame the obstacles along the way and made it to a happy ending. Well maybe not an ending. But happy. And lovely. And ... well ... we don't know if she says yes!
Author's Response:
OMG. This is a masterpiece, Kev. Deserving of an award all its own. At a minimum, I'm definitely appointing you admiral of the J/M shippers' fleet.
(As an aside, I have not been able to get JQ's fucking yodeling out of my head since I read this. And he's dancing around in Lederhosen. I may wind up in the psych ward soon, and it's all your fault! (Well, maybe not ALLLL your fault ...))
On a more serious note, you are the only one who mentioned the parallel between Galartha and their relationship, and you nailed it - absolutely the shifting rocky landscape and their determination to make it to the top is a perfect metaphor for their complicated lives and their commitment to one another. Thanks for picking up on that. :)
Date: 17 May 2015 15:51 Title: The Peak
*sniffs* Team I/M is having difficulty putting this into words. But imagine cute kittens crying and you're in the ballpark. The title is perfect. The scene is perfect. Icheb is right.
Team I/M wants there to be babies sometime soon. Iden wants it, too.
That is all.
Author's Response:
Oh, no! I made the cute kittens cry? That's sort of awful, really, and not at all what I was going for! But YOU seem happy, at least, so that's something. :)
And babies?! They're babies themselves! They've just barely gotten engaged and you're pushing for babies? Gosh. No pressure or anything, Icheb and Maren. ;-)
As for Iden, she doesn't even know them yet. Patience, grasshopper!
(I'm glad you're excited. Really. This review made me smile.)
[Report This]Date: 17 May 2015 13:25 Title: The Peak
Yay! Icheb and Maren for the win. Can't wait to see what changes you are going to throw our way and tragedy is overrated - bring on the happy! As usual, top notch descriptions, amazing all that you manage to fit into one of these tiny ficlets. Bring on the rest!
Author's Response:
Thanks, Joel! It's fun to give these two a little break from all the hell I've been putting them through the last six (!) years. As I said to Steff, I hope the sweetness doesn't induce diabetes. Consider yourselves warned ... no suing me for medical bills!
Date: 17 May 2015 12:48 Title: The Peak
Oh! /claps hands/
Yay for happy stuff! W00t!
Author's Response:
:-D
Date: 17 May 2015 08:22 Title: The Peak
Ah, Icheb you romantic fool, you cheesy yet also classic wordsmith of love, you .... wait, what? Oh this is an AU. Of course. That makes sense then. Well, will she or won't she? Me things she will, in this universe, anything's possible even *gasp* happiness.
Author's Response:
Haha. Yes, it takes an AU for things to go right for them once in a while. Pretty sad statement!
Date: 17 May 2015 05:49 Title: The Peak
Oh, my heart. Wow, you weren't kidding about the happy. I love the scenery work you did here, and of course, the mental image of Icheb proposing to her up there is just-- gorgeous. What a lovely kickoff!
Author's Response:
Thanks, Steff! I hope I don't give everyone diabetes with all the sweetness this week.