AU or Not AU?

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Hm, who's Edward Cullen?

The vampire hero of a totally different Twilight. The one that has tween girls all aflutter. Me? I like vampires that want to bite me before marriage. But I'm old-fashioned.

Ah, that one! I've noticed all the hype but I've never bothered to check it out, let alone learn the names from it. But I've seen pics. Is he they guy who looks so pale and effeminate?

[panyasan]

Everybody has a strong point and a weak point. Perhaps I'm good at AUs, but I couldn't write Alelou's "Missing scenes", because I'm not that good filling the holes, I guess.

I absolutely suck at fluff (it's because I don't like the genre much, but even if I make an effort I can't write it), NC-17 stories and writing a playful and humorous relationship between Trip and T'Pol.

I think one of the reasons I like Alelou, Escriba and Aquarius stories so much is they can make humour work - my jokes fall flat (in spite of my enormous sense of humour ). And nobody can make humour and NC 17 work as Aquarius.

[honeybee]

Is he they guy who looks so pale and effeminate?

Yes. He's the one. And my colleague looks like an older version of him - so the girls line up outside his office. LOL

And nobody can make humour and NC 17 work as Aquarius.

And that is the truth!

[justTripn]

I really liked the episode Twilight, although if you want to see a cannon-friendly TnT version of that check out a story by Kevin. (Can anyone remember the title?) T'Pol watched Archer day by day on the planet, while Trip was captain of Enterprise, but he came home every so often to his wife T'Pol who was ONLY babysitting the hopelessly forgetful Archer.

Also, I truly loved the episode as it aired. I thought Archer and T'Pol, and Trip were acting nobly. It was one of those no good solution-type dilemmas but everyone did their best and I found that very touching. Also, I love that episode because at a convention I asked Robert Duncan McNeil (who played Tom Paris in Voyager) which was his favorite Enterprise episode out of those he directed and he described "Twilight" but had forgotten it's name, so the audience, including me, called it out to him. Well, later I got to talk to him one on one for like 5 minutes and in my (possibly skewed recollection) HE initiated the conversation by recognizing me and saying "Sorry, I forgot the name of your episode." (MY EPISODE, he, he . . .) Giving me the opportunity to say, "Not at all, what a wonderful episode you directed, one of my favorites." And then he said, "Me too," and we actually talked about the episode breifly!!!!! And he asked where I was from and then volunteered that as a teenager he had worked one summer a a certina amusement park that happens to be 5 minutes from my house. But I digress . . .

[honeybee]

I know that Kevin story. It's a good one.

There's also Stub's story "Tender" which is just a vignette - with Trip visiting T'Pol once a month on the planet. The story is the last night, the one before they all die the next day.

The direction of the episode did really make it good - the pacing and cutting back and forth between timelines worked very well. So RDM did a great job and should be proud of his work on that one.

[bluetiger]

JT, I think you may be talking about The Battle Of Evermore by Kevin. It begins with Archer rushing into Trip's quarters and catching Trip and T'Pol minutes after sex. Very good story.

[WarpGirl]

JT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG OMG YOU JUST LIVED OUT MY DREAM! I've been an RDM fanatic since The First Duty, he's my favorite Trek guy EVER! And he's a phenominal director and a hell of an actor. I AM SOOOOOOOOOO JEALOUS!

[honeybee]

The Battle of Evermore:

http://triptpolers.houseoftucker.com/fi ... more.shtml


Kevin also wrote the wonderfully kinky (but only R-rated) Mirror Universe stories where TnT take over the Empire - after Trip has Empress Sato killed - and he and T'Pol become the Theodora and Justinian of the MU.

[honeybee]

Speaking of AUs and what you can get away with - I wrote a little, light and non explicit scene into Family Secrets (not posted here yet) where T'Pol is playing at being a dominatrix but doesn't really get it - and Trip (who doesn't take the game seriously at all) tries to explain it to her and she still is just confused, even though she's good at it. Boy - my email box was full this morning - not so much with reviews - but with private messages - either very pro or very con. People seem to be very split.

Also, earlier in the story, there's a far more explicit scene (but still very light as these things go) where Trip is in the dominant role and it did not provoke a reaction at all.

Anyway, I always thought that T'Pol's first season catsuit/persona was more than a little dominatrix - much as 7 of 9 's was. So, in my head - I thought it would be funny if T'Pol completely misinterpreted why anyone would be turned on by a dominatrix.

Anyway, from the emails - my guess is some people like this - some people don't. Which is fine with me.

But in Blue'n Black's Payment and in Kevin's MU stories - there's very, very serious S&M undertones - both with T'Pol in the submissive position. And Kevin also has an AU story of his own devising with T'Pol in the dominant role. (It's called Princess T'Pol) I get that this isn't everyone's cup of tea - but people really seem to love Payment a whole lot, especially.

Meanwhile, Aquarius can play with these themes in her funny stories - and I don't think anyone minds.

So, my questions. Are people more willing to accept this stuff in the MU and AU than in the regular world? Are people more willing to see the female in the submissive role?

I'm more just curious as to what people think. I think this purely a matter of taste for most people.

[pdsldl]

Undertones is one thing and removed from actual sex. Some stories it's part of because it's very intricately a part of the story and defines who the characters are. Alelou's story was about Pon Farr and rough sex goes with the territory she's exploring. Aquarius' stories are humorous looks at sex between the characters and she does an excellent job of letting us look at two characters and the fun and craziness of sex, which I think too many adults lose after their teens.

In Payment the characters are drawn with certain traits and while Trip being dominant over T'Pol is part of the story I still wouldn't see him taking it into the bedroom in that story. Beyond maybe getting so angry with T'Pol he tries to relieve the stress by having sex with her, which might start off a little forceful. The Hoshi in that story or Malcolm are a totally different story. They're sadistic characters that get off on hurting people so it is expected that that is possible. In RU can't see any of the characters we saw on the show going there without some additional foundation being built to their characters.

The hints of it you have in Family Secrets until this last installment I didn't pay much attention to most likely because I don't think in those terms when romance is involved and it was really light. But you see it different so okay. I can read around this stuff if I need to and leave it out of my own little picture of what's been written. I tend not to like too much NC-17 action anyway. Romance and sex is great and normal and I don't not read stories because of it, but for me most times I'd rather fade to black in fill in the blanks myself. I still like your story and will continue to read it with or without the BDSM.

It's all about the characters and what has been established about them for me and is there a story outside of the bedroom.

And T'Pol's uniform was just like seven of nine's and the mini skirts (how impractical were those in space and on a starship) the crew wore in TOS--the males were feeding that 12 year old mentality some of them never get rid of.

[honeybee]

I think it's all just a matter of taste. I love Payment, but I could never write what Blue N' Black does in that story. I wouldn't be comfortable writing one party, male or female, in a legitimately non-consensual role, MU or not, whether there is actual sex or just implied sexuality. But I'm fine with writing hints at completely consensual role playing - though I'd never write it explicitly because I do think its better left to the imagination.

But the MU is a world in which the very bad personas of the people come out to play. I've seen a few MU Reed fics that are very sexual - but it's weird, I almost see MU Reed as asexual - since all his energies are applied toward his work at torturing people. MU Hoshi is an entirely different matter.

[Alelou]

I had to go read the story first ... and yeah, I did have a little discomfort with an eagerly submissive Trip. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's a gender role thing. Or maybe it's because, after seeing him so powerless and frustrated in their relationship on screen for so long, I just can't imagine him seeking out anything with even a hint of that anymore. However, it was clear they were really just having fun together. It was hardly enough to turn me off the story, and I thought this was a particularly interesting chapter as a whole.

[honeybee]

In the private message realm, there's been a very strong gender split. Male readers like Mistress T'Pol and aren't thinking at all about Trip. Female readers are uncomfortable with the idea of submissive Trip - and I agree, given how much power she had in the relationship early on, I wouldn't want it to come off as anything other than a game. One where he ultimately has the power.

Now I have to go read Chapter 13 of Payment.

[justTripn]

Speaking of the great undo of *the_abomination* in the books, I would like to give a shout out to the now-laid off editor Margaret Clark. I've heard that he listened very hard to what fans had to say about *the_abomination* and made a list of everything that was wrong with episode and gave Martin/Mangels their marching orders to undo it. She went to the big heads at paramount and - they said go for it. The list was apparently long - and had lots more on it that Trip's death and the end of TnT. I've heard that even Shran being a criminal was on the list of things to undo.

She may have not worked directly for the show, but she was a fan, a TnT shipper and she listened to the reaction to *the_abomination*. It's a darn shame she was let go from Pocket Books - and I can only hope that her influence continues.

Cool. Which would explain why I had the feeling as I read the book that "someone" had been spying on our little community. I think there was even a line in the Andy Mangels book to the effect that T'Pol realized that whatever had happened to him, "Trip was most definatley not dead." (Not. Dead.) lol . . .

[justTripn]

Honestly, I can just see him being hurt/pissed that what he must think of as his two best friends (on the ship at least) would be carrying on behind his back ... and this would only be complicated by the very real command issues it could raise.

I'm not hostile to the idea that Archer might have entertained some lustful thoughts for T'Pol, though I don't see much evidence of it outside of that silly ANIS and even there I took it as something bizarre being comically whipped up by a wrongheaded Phlox. If you ask me there's just really no chemistry between A and T, even when they tried to write some. The way I see it, Archer gets some sort of not-entirely-healthy pleasure from feeling that he can actually support and guide this Vulcan chick. It's a weird combination of patronizing and paternalistic, mixed in with some genuine regard ... plus the knowledge that she really does save their asses regularly.

Haa . . . that says it all. Still . . . Most of us insert ourselves into this story by being Trip or T'Pol, which is fun, but in my saner moments I know I was more a Captain Archer . . . standing outside the action watching the prom kind and queen get all the attention, wishing it could be me. So, I don't begrudge him his mild frustration as he tries to do the right thing: caution his friends that they might not be right for each other and then getting on board as quickly as possible to be happy for them when it is clear they have made up their minds. I have fun playing with that.