Journal

Challenge #8 Write a manifesto, promo or primer
Oh, boy! How am I supposed to choose? And how do I write those? I'm already excited to try something new. After looking up some ship manifestos I've realized that I've read exactly two of those before, both appeared out of nowhere shortly after I asked myself "why does anyone ship that?". Both ships are now a permanent part of my TBR/open tabs collection, so those manifestos were very convincing and had a point. (It's Harry/Draco and Sokka/Zuko if anyone is wondering.)

This is the opportunity to ramble about my favourites and now I can't make a decision. Love it. I'll try to go with something that is 1. not a widely spread ship and 2. makes me slightly lose my mind every time I have the chance to talk about it.

Meet Amanda Grayson and Sarek. If you are in the Star Trek fandom you might recognise Spock's parents.

Who are Amanda and Sarek?
Sarek is the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, so an important and powerful political figure. He's also constantly struggling with his emotions, cause he does love his wife and children, but he tries really hard not to show it, which is a problem when the family is half Human. It makes him look like an ass sometimes but he's actually a softy.

Amanda is, well, that depends. There isn't that much about her in the canon, so it changes from fic to fic. It also depends a lot on which show/movies the fic is based on. In general she is a head strong, capable woman, good at whatever job she has and often willing to follow through with the interesting rather than the obvious or sensible choice.

What canon should you consume?
Well, that's a bit hard to summarise. There are bits everywhere but nothing that really focuses on either of them. The most you will probably get from the show Discovery, but that's not necessary. I think what's more important for this ship is to understand Vulcan culture, so TOS, AOS and DIS will all serve you well, or just read up on Memory Alpha a bit. Or if you are a K/S shipper you should be good. (Did I just list K/S fics in the canon section? yes. yes I did.)

Typical Tropes and such
It's often a side pairing in K/S fic and usually very heavy on Vulcan Culture and world building, including cultural misunderstandings. That also includes often Pon Farr related problems and misunderstandings, but they usually get sorted out.
Then there is of course the fact that Sarek is emotionally constipated. And Amanda is usually the exact opposite. Which makes for an interesting dynamic.

What do I love about this ship?
Long story short: It feels like Horatio Hornblower/William Bush to me.

Long story for everyone, who doesn't get lost in age of sail stuff from time to time: An emotionally constipated idiot - Sarek - , who is actually pretty smart, struggles with existing. He thinks he has to solve all the problems in the universe on his own since he has an important job. But no one really notices, how much he struggles, 'cause he's good at improvising and making plans with what he has at hand.
This idiot meets someone - Amanda- , who is openly emotional, but not necessarily emotionally available though and probably cursing. She is also very competent, but not the same kind of books smart and struggles with the question "where do I belong?".

The moment they get together, they become a power couple, more powerful together than ever on their own. They grow because while getting to know each other, they get to know themselves too. Sarek learns to face his emotions (a bit), Amanda learns to trust her emotions. Sarek becomes the answer of Amanda's "where do I belong?" and Sarek has  something other to focus on besides his work, which opens him to new possibilities.

And there is a lot of family dynamics and exploration of alien cultures, which I love a lot.

That being said, especially when the fic sticks to the canon a lot it's not a lovey dovey happily ever after. I could never properly put it into words, but luckily TomFooleryPrime did on a post about their canon relationship.

Content Warnings
Dubious Consent - I haven't seen it a lot, but one may stumble over it when looking at this ship.

Fic Recs
Between Now and Eternity by TomFooleryPrime T | F/M | #Strangers to Lovers #Wilderness Survival #Slow Burn
Sarek and Amanda crash on the same planet and are stuck there for a while.

Polyphony by saavik13 M | F/M | #Vulcan Datin # horny
It's a little out of the ordinary and difficult to summarise, but a fun read.

Logic Demands That You Take Off That Ridiculous Hat, Get Naked, and Come to Bed by igrockspock T | F/M | #Getting Together # Huddling for Warmth
A team building exercise goes awry and they have to huddle for warmth.

The Serendipity Paradox by TomFooleryPrime T | F/M | #Espionage #Slow Burn
"A school teacher, an ambassador, and a plot to overthrow the Federation. Love isn't always easy ... or logical."
It's a great mystery plot with a nice love story thrown in.

I'm back to doing those two at a time

Challenge #6 favourite piece of original canon
Since I'm a multifandom whore fanatic this is really difficult, I scrolled through the comments on the post for some inspiration and people brought up very powerful scenes and characters etc. The Death's speech about believe at the end of The Hogfather, scenes from Star Trek and others brought back some very powerful memories.
Two things come to my mind:

1. The scene in DS9 when Dr. Bashir meets Garak for the first time. It is less about the scene itself and more about how it came to be and what this first meeting in canon will lead to. From Andrew Robinson apparently deciding on the fly to play Garak as absolutely horny for the dear Doctor and Alexander Siddig picking it up and playing along to A Stitch in Time, which if you don't know reads like an overly complicated love letter from Garak to Dr. Bashir.

2. Beatrice from Much Ado about Nothing. I could end it right there, cause she's awesome. But there is a little detail that stuck out to me: Beatrice is probably an heiress.

It's not in the text I know, but bare with me. Beatrice is Leonato's niece. Leonato's brother Antonio barely interacts with Beatrice it's never made clear that they are father and daughter, if anyone acts parental towards Beatrice it's Leonato. She's listed as his niece not someone's daughter in the dramatis personae, everything points to her being a ward of her uncle - none of this would make sense if she's Antonio's daughter. So let's assume she's not, that would make her the daughter of a sibling of Innogen, Leonato's wife and a ghost character, who is only mentioned in the dramatis personae in early edition, but doesn't get a single line of dialogue. Innogen and Beatrice might be the only two people remaining from this family, which would make Beatrice a potential heiress.

In addition Beatrice has no real pressure - yeah, people assume she will marry one day, cause everyone does, and they tease her about it, but no one tells her that she needs a man to secure her future, which realistically would be the case unless she makes money or has inherited money.

So I think Beatrice is an heiress and I love her to bits.

Edit: Hit enter too early and it posted only half the post. I'm trying to fix it.

I can't be arsed to do this properly but I really need something nice that I'm doing for myself instead for uni or work or my family or hiding behind doing things for my friends.

Challenge #1: Update fandom information

What are the current fandoms I'm partaking in? There is some Emergency!, you know the 1972 TV show, cause guardy dragged me me down that rabbit hole and I even wrote a fic for it! They also convinced me to get a spinning wheel.

I'm also too deep in Bashir/Garak fanfiction for my own good.

Challenge #2: my fannish origin

I think I answered that before, but it lays somewhere between The Persuaders! with Roger Moore and Tony Curtis. Watching that while still in elementary school and thinking damn, they act like a silly couple opened my eyes to a new world. From that point on I started seeing it in Star Trek and the books I was reading and god knows where else.

But my first step into anything fandom related was when a friend of mine in 8th or 9th grade told me about fanfiction and when I first looked it up I walked straight into smut. Fanfiction.net, you know? You never know what's inside with that one.

See you later, hopefully!