I've Been Starting To Re-read My Earlier Chapters Of Ithaca As I Near Completion. I Can Safely Say This

A note about updates

Writing has always been my solace. It has gotten me through good times and bad. Tonight I learned my father passed away, which will understandably shift my update schedules as my mother and my brother and I work to process this news.

I remain committed to finishing my works, as I still have many stories to tell. Writing is my own form of therapy, of catharsis--my form of escaping the stresses of daily life which now seem small and trivial compared to what I reflect on tonight.

Though I have not yet absorbed what's happened, I can say while I am still here tonight and still functioning for the moment that I implore you always take photos and videos of your loved ones. Save the funny voicemails and voice notes. Cherish them like the treasures that they are because one day the real thing may be gone in the blink of an eye, and they may be all you have. I am grateful for my foresight to have done so with my father. I had not spoken with him in a few weeks, but I know now that if I need to hear him, to see him in some form, I can.

I am fortunate to have lived 34 years on this earth before needing to face this loss. There are many who lose one or both parents much sooner. I am fortunate that he and my mother raised me to be independent, to be free-thinking, and to live openly as a LGBT woman, and that they always loved and supported me in spite of how they might have struggled to understand it. But know that no matter how long you have with your family, your friends, or your pets--it is plainly, simply, never enough time.

I am grateful to everyone who has followed my stories. I am grateful for your kudos, your comments, and your presence. Your support is meaningful, it has value, and I am grateful.

Writing has served to keep me going more than once over the years. It will do so again, and it will be especially important to me now.

Thank you for reading.

And the poor people on AO3 that get my pre-beta versions...

🙋‍♀️...particularly when Emma dragged Regina into the closet after Henry ate the apple turnover 🔥😬😬

Who else?

Snippet of a new WIP I didn't need to start...

“What happened to your truck?”

The woman leaned a bit, like she’d just noticed the damage.

“Dunno,” she answered, leaning back with a frown. “Found it that way.”

Taryn dropped the bag in the bed, then clapped the dust from her palms.

“Looks like an animal got it.”

The woman shrugged.

“S’pose it does,” she said.

“Some kinda grizzly?” Taryn asked, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking one hip out to the side.

“Could be.”

“You don’t seem real concerned,” Taryn remarked with a lopsided smirk.

The woman shrugged again.

“Not my truck.”

Taryn didn’t 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.

“You got cameras at your place?”

The change in the woman was immediate. Her head snapped around. Her face became edgy and hard.

“Why?” she demanded.

Taryn wasn’t ready for the sharp note of suspicion.

“You got a grizzly you prob’ly should know,” she explained. “What if it comes after you?”

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.

“Ain’t got grizzlies up there,” she said, and this time, she seemed almost to chuckle.

“This whole area’s got grizzlies,” Taryn countered. She waved toward the store. “My boss hit one just last week.”

Another shrug.

“Won’t hit any grizzlies drivin’ up there.”

Taryn raised her brows and gave up.

“Thanks for loadin’ me up,” 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. “See you next week.”

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.

“Yeah,” she called out over the ruckus. “I’ll be here like always.”

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. Taryn’s 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.

For years, Burnham’s subsistence had consumed it.

This time, though, its obsession had brought it too close.

It was easy enough to inject the codes and create the protocols she needed to guide it. But the process was delicate, conducted in increments in the years she’d lurked on board. There were times she had wanted to push, to move faster and save more ships. But discretion was key–her influence could only be gradual, dispersed across timelines that coincided with new batches of data lest it ever suspect an intruder.

Control was smart, its processes swift and its analyses improving with every moment. It would outpace her soon enough, learning faster than she could, and if it ever caught wind of her presence, she had no doubts about what it would do to her.

The Commander whose face it still wore was indication enough of that.

A shiver passed through her at the thought of possession, at the depraved violation of Airiam’s last moments alive, and she shrugged the coil of cables onto her shoulder.

Control reviewed that memory often, as if it were searching for something.

Or maybe it simply enjoyed it.

She moved through the doorway, back into the corridor. It would not do to dwell on worries and what-ifs when Discovery and Burnham were finally within reach. The room she’d set up as her station was near, and she still had two hours before Control would wake again.

It was plenty of time.

Starfleet would hear her.

-----

I'll begin posting this one soon :)

Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery

Rating: Mature

Relationships: Michael Burnham / Airiam, Michael Burnham / Control, Michael Burnham / Nhan

Synopsis:

Three years after the attack on Section 31 Headquarters, Starfleet and the Federation are on the brink. Planet after planet is falling to Control, every attack more devastating than the last. There are no patterns, no viable solutions to stop the carnage, and with their resources dwindling, the last Federation starships are at risk of being corrupted themselves.

But when the USS Discovery begins receiving encrypted transmissions from someone claiming to be Starfleet who seems to know everything about their enemy, Captain Michael Burnham is forced to decide whether their new source is truly an ally–or if Control is luring the Federation’s last bastion of hope into a trap.

And if it's gay, probably Janeway or Discovery...❤️

“where did this weird trope even come from?”

well, statistically speaking, probably star trek

And as the Admiral "...people who LOVE YOU." 😭

Janeway in love with seven is like the most precious thing bc she keeps her emotional self kinda private from everyone on board but then *bam* SEVEN, anything to do with Seven and suddenly she's showing everybody her weakness unintentionally bc she's so deep for this woman she doesn't even realize she's telling the whole ship she's in love with her just by being in sevens court at every turn without any regrets. I love janeway. I love how janeway loves seven. I love how kathryn janeway allows herself to love seven, unequivocally.

Star Trek: Voyager, J/7: The Measure of Logic - Chapter 10 Posted

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62063797/chapters/163237201

Author's VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Next week's chapter may be delayed as I will be stuck in Chicago all week and pretending to like people. I promise you all, I would rather be writing.

BUT, I may have time to revise and post Chapter 11 on my 14 hour train rides there and back, so we shall see!

-----

Fandoms: Star Trek: Voyager x Star Trek: Discovery

Relationship: Kathryn Janeway / Seven of Nine

Rating: Mature

Synopsis:

After Captain Janeway contracts an illness during an expedition to an uninhabited planet and orders USS Voyager to leave her behind, a certain hardheaded Astrometrics officer isn't so keen on abandoning her Captain. As Janeway and Seven learn to navigate the strange new dynamic forming between them, it becomes apparent that the planet they now call home has a much deeper story to tell--one that seems to defy logic, reality, and even the natural order of time itself. ----- This is a standalone fic but can be read as additional worldbuilding to my "For the Optics" series. Timeline runs about a year prior to the events of "A Binding of Stars."

My first introduction to Seven of Nine was through Picard, and I just love her all growed up <3

STAR TREK: PICARD - S3E1 The Next Generation

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 🫠