#regionalpancakewrites

[regionalpancake]

Night Sky With Exit Wounds - Regionalpancake - Star Trek: Picard [Archive of Our Own]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Trek: Picard Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine Characters: Raffi Musiker, Seven of Nine Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Angst, Masking, Grief/Mourning, Seven dealing with the loss of borg tech, seriously imagine suddenly losing a huge part of your sensory processing ability and memory-, and then try to act casual, Episode: s02e05 Fly Me to the Moon (Star Trek: Picard), Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury Summary:

Bodies are difficult, and grief is difficult, but loving her is easy.

Newly human Seven of Nine struggles with understanding the world without her Borg physiology.

A missing scene for Season 2 Episode 5. Thanks so much to @what-happens-to-the-heart for another year of Cohen, Star Trek, and angst 🖖💕✨

[regionalpancake]

PBJ, Warm, Kinda Squished - Regionalpancake - Star Trek: Voyager [Archive of Our Own]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tom Paris & Seven of Nine Characters: Seven of Nine, Tom Paris Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Episode: s04e20 Vis à Vis, 1969 Camaro, StarTrekPotluck2024, Male-Female Friendship, Big Sur, road trip vibes, mild peril to both cars and sandwiches Summary:

“Imagine, Northern California, late twentieth century. You're cruising up Highway One, the woofers are pounding, the wind is whipping through your hair."

Seven helps out with Tom’s driving programme.

My contribution for this years @startrekpotluck 🩵 5th year in a row! We've been doing this for half a decade folks 🥳✨

Thanks to @procrastinatorproject for being such a brilliant potluck co-host 💕

[regionalpancake]

My Candle Burns at Both Ends - Regionalpancake - Star Trek: Picard [Archive of Our Own]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jack Crusher (Star Trek: Picard) / Ronin (Star Trek) Characters: Jack Crusher (Star Trek: Picard), Ronin (Star Trek) Additional Tags: Paranormal Romance, Crack Treated Seriously, Episode: s01e07 Sub Rosa Summary:

‘Tis the season for ghost stories, and one ghost in particular has moved on to the latest in the Howard line…

(Or: someone was going to write it, so it might as well be me.)

[regionalpancake]

For the “send me a sentence” ask game: “The cigar was perched on the side of the ashtray, a thin wisp of smoke rising, rising, rising, until it twirled into invisibility.”

“Explain.” Steward said, pointing at the offending item on the mess table.

“Cleansing the dining area of Bolian mites?” Enoch said, arranging his features into something approaching nonchalance. “The smoke kills them off.”

Steward was already halfway through pulling up a ship-wide bio scan before Enoch could finish.

“Are you accusing me of allowing an infestation? And in a recreational area of the ship, at that?”

Enoch rotated the cigar so that it smouldered evenly in the ashtray. He sighed.

“Y’know you could at least pretend to believe me.”

Steward bristled.

“Not at the expense of my hospitality protocols! An infestation! Just the thought of it!” He shuddered theatrically.

Enoch folded his arms on the table and rested his chin on them, watching the smoke coil almost imperceptibly in the still air.

“I miss how the ship used to smell.”

“You can’t smell,” Steward closed his folio.

“Fine. I miss how the ships internal atmospheric sensor data used to intermittently spike with nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and benzene.”

“You miss the benzene?”

“I miss him.”

Steward reached out, paused a second to overthink, and then patted Enoch on the back. Twice. The ‘there there’ was implied in the tempo.

“Well, we’re still working on it, aren’t we?” The hospitality hologram tried to sound hopeful. “Come on, Emil’s in the holosuite, he thinks he might have made a breakthrough…”

[regionalpancake]

Embargo - Regionalpancake - Star Trek: Picard [Archive of Our Own]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Trek: Picard Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Raffi Musiker & Cristóbal Rios, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine Characters: Raffi Musiker, Cristóbal Rios, Seven of Nine, Jean-Luc Picard Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Humor, Light Angst, Bittersweet, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Crew as Family, Found Family, StarTrekPotluck2023, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Season/Series 02, Canon Compliant, In which the writer tries to make sense of the canon, inspired by those heart to heart conversations you have in a plastic chair by the fire after a party, you know the ones, Romulan Ale (Star Trek), dutch courage Summary: How Raffi and Rios met. Some things change, some things stay the same.

My contribution for @startrekpotluck 💚

Thanks to @procrastinatorproject for being such an amazing potluck co-host 💕

[regionalpancake]

Life Raft - Regionalpancake - Star Trek: Picard [Archive of Our Own]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: La Sirena Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Emil | La Sirena's Emergency Medical Hologram & Four (xB OC) Characters: Emil | La Sirena's Emergency Medical Hologram, Four (xB OC), Hugh | Third of Five, Mister Hospitality | La Sirena's Emergency Hospitality Hologram, Ian | La Sirena's Emergency Engineering Hologram, Emmet | La Sirena's Emergency Tactical Hologram, Enoch | La Sirena's Emergency Navigational Hologram Additional Tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hugh | Third of Five Lives, holoween, Holoween2023, holo technology as medical accessibility, slaps the roof of the fic - this bad boy can fit so much medical trauma Summary: When no one else can get a young xB the medical care she needs to save her life, Emil is the only doctor for the job.

My contribution for Holoween! Thanks so much to @holo-squad for organising and giving me the excuse to write the holos again <3

[regionalpancake]

girl help! I’m trying to write Hughnor fic and I have no idea what to call Hugh’s outer later - this big rubber X ⬇️

I cannot write ‘fuck harness™️’, I’m trying to write FLUFF over here

[regionalpancake]

For the question ask: "how about a little midnight snack?” + la Sirena's holos.

“It’s risky.” Rios tossed the PADD back to Raffi across the table, “There’s security around the perimeter, interphasic-shielding, the works.”

“We’ve survived worse.”

“We were younger!”

"How about a little midnight snack?” Steward smiled, appearing with a selection of nibbles. “To help with the scheming?”

Rios glared at the EHH. Raffi however was already putting the tray of food to good use.

“Ok Seven, the dip is the power-grid.”

“Understood.” The xB nodded.

“Elnor, you’ll strike here, by the cheese puffs.”

“I’ll be ready!”

“Agnes?”

“Mhmm?”

“Can you stop eating the enemy defenses?”

“You did say you wanted them neutralized…”

[regionalpancake]

🕯️

“was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?”

(Moment of silence for my brain, since I can’t look at this emoji without pairing it with 🕯️👻💚 in honour of Bev 😂)

I think the toughest fic was Crows Feet (my Merry Month of Cohen fic from a few years back)

It focussed on chronic illness and media othering through Hugh’s experience as an xB.

I’d read Memento Mori by @song-spero and it changed me, that story does such beautiful and heartbreakingly tender things with grief, trauma, and belonging, that the canon couldn’t even dream of!

That fic featured a line about Hugh wanting to keep his scars and get crows feet beside his eyes after his reclamation, and I KNEW I needed to expand on that.

It’s a love letter to song-spero’s fic, to Hugh, and (hopefully🤞) to people who saw something of their own chronic illness experience in how Picard (season 1) portrayed the xB’s.

It’s one I’m really proud of, and I hope people get out of it the same kind of catharsis that I got from writing it :)

[regionalpancake]

For the fic writer ask: 💝🎙and also: 💌, because you *say* it feels like forever since you wrote, and I'm sure that's true, but I know that you *have* been writing and you deserve to celebrate that ;)💗

💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting? This one answered here :)

🎙️which one of your fics would you like someone to make a pod-fic of? I have been BLESSED that @thelaithlyworm has made SIX of my stories into podfics! Obviously I recommend them all, BUT if you need a pick-me-up on a bad day, then the podfic of Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) is just what the EMH ordered! Thimble's skillfull weaving of the music through the story always leaves me with a goofy smile on my face and wanting to dance!

[PODFIC] Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A Man After Midnight), by Regionalpancake

[PODFIC] Raffi-Seven DOWNTIME Drabbles, by Regionalpancake

[PODFIC] You Want It Darker, by Regionalpancake

[PODFIC] Observational Truth, by Regionalpancake

[PODFIC] What Spring Does With The Cherry Trees, by Regionalpancake

[PODFIC] Some Strange Cargo, by Regionalpancake

As for a fic I'd like to see a podfic of in the future? Any transformative work makes my heart sing! But if I had to choose, I think it would have to be Crow's Feet, because that fic is so dear to my heart!

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited! You're so sweet for how you worded this ask! <3 Here's a look at Rios, after the end of season 2, having a conversation in his head with a friend he'll never see again. (Roll on the Merry Month of Cohen!)

Rios lifted the coffee, and somewhere in between the morning quiet and the coffee's steam he muttered.

“I need your help, Raf.”

“If you wanted my advice you shouldn’t have relocated to the Dark Ages.” 

The seat next to him was still empty. He imagined Raffi sipping her coffee. He did the same.

“Y’know this is your own goddamn fault?” She said.

“I know.”

Ask meme

[regionalpancake]

Anytime - Regionalpancake - Star Trek: Picard [Archive of Our Own]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Trek: Picard Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Raffi Musiker & Cristóbal Rios Characters: Cristóbal Rios, Raffi Musiker, Ricardo Ramirez - Character Additional Tags: Angst, Light Angst, Missing Scene, Crew as Family, Found Family, Merry Month of Cohen, A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes, some people are never completely gone, these two deserved better, Post-Season/Series 02, a quiet morning in the 21st century Summary: In the 21st century, Rios misses talking with his oldest friend.

Thanks to @abunchoflonesomeheroes for hosting this excellent fest!

[regionalpancake]

💝

💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

Oh! Easily Downtime, my collection of Picard drabbles! I've loved drabbles for as long as I've read fanfic, there's something wonderful about fitting in a scene or an emotional beat into that exact word count. But it other fandoms I've been in drabbles got little readership, and were very much seen as 'less-than' compared to the 100k+ word works. So I wasn't really expecting anyone to read them when I started putting them on AO3. I'm still amazed people gave them the time, and now it's my work with the highest hits at over 10,000 (I'm shocked, astounded, and so so grateful!)

Hopefully I'll have the brain space to start adding to it again now that season 3 is done <3 Ask meme

[regionalpancake]

For the Ask meme:

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

Characters for sure, though I am a sucker for background worldbuilding, and when they're both together? A dream! I learned from the best - and one of my fav examples of character and worldbuilding coming together beautifully is your fic Poor Tom! I think I've got a bit of both going on too in Companions:

I love that fanfiction gives us the space to have characters that have never met in canon, meet and have the edges of their stories bleed together. Having Hugh and Kestra talk circles around grief is how I did it in companions. And shout out to @curator-on-ao3 for having Raffi and Janeway fall for each other in The Monster (a perennial favourite!)

[regionalpancake]

🦋what are you most insecure about when you post a fic?

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

Most insecure about? Oh ABSOLUTELY it’s spelling… and grammar, and syntax, and-

I love telling stories, and it’s something that verbally I can do really well (I’m told I’m a good DM for D&D!) but I’m also dyslexic and so getting the story on the page is something that can be a challenge for me.

Thankfully I’ve got an excellent beta who helps with the word wrangling, and I think I’m getting less worried or self-conscious about making mistakes.

My style as a writer! This makes me feel very professional 🧐✨I think it’s changed, in that I’m more aware of style then when I started. But the general vibe is almost always some combination of ‘healing through found family’, ‘hurt/comfort’, and emotional intimacy (platonic or otherwise) expressed through friendly banter. Which is almost certainly why Raffi&Rios are my catnip ✨

[regionalpancake]

"almost" for your wips?

“Can’t you carry some of these, brother?” The ferengi grumbled from somewhere behind the heavy stack of boxes he was carrying.

“And crease this suit? Don’t be ridiculous, Rom! It’s new.” Quark preened, brushing an imagined speck of dust from his teal shoulder pad. “And stop complaining, we’re almost at the town.”

A beetle scurried across the desert path in front of them. The outpost looked tiny in the distance.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t just land in the settlement,” Rom sighed.

“That’s because you’re an idiot- if they scan my ship they’re going to get a report about our last complication on the job and it’ll interfere with sales.”

“Er, you mean they’ll see you coming, brother?”

This one is from The Rios Manoeuvre, a Star Trek La Sirena fic with a little ferengi cameo :D

[regionalpancake]

🌈 for the fic ask meme!

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

YES! It was Out of the Game, my entry for last year's Merry Month of Cohen. I was writing for the fest while Season 2 was airing. I really struggled with losing the Motley Crew, as well as making sense of a lot of the character choices. Every week I would try to write something... and every week the canon made me metaphorically crumple my work up and toss it in the bin.

When the Agnes and Borg Queen plot was developing I started writing a fic called Shadows - 'As the Borg Queen seeks control over Agnes, she walks through Agnes’ memories of the last year. Of La Sirena, of found family, and of Rios.' Which I stopped working on when the canon got too sad for me.

Then I started writing Raffi breaking the news to the holos (or at this point holo, singular) that Rios wasn't coming back:

“You’ve looked better.” Raffi startled at the familiar voice, and looked round to catch the last prismatic shiver of a hologram activating. “Emmet?” “Roughly,” The holo shrugged, looking instead at the open crate, at the books, at the mementos, then at Raffi’s sad eyes.

But I couldn't get my head round Seven's canon choice to merge the holos, so that one cos scrapped.

So then I started Night Sky With Exit Wounds, a Seven/Raffi fic where Seven is struggling with the sensory impact of losing her implants:

“Y’know you’re pretty quiet,” Raffi trailed off and followed Seven’s gaze up through the glass of the roof. The night sky glittered in the dark of the French countryside at night.  “The stars look beautiful out here, huh?” “Where, exactly?” Seven’s head moved slowly, eyes scanning the sky above. “You’re kidding me? Right there, y’know those twinkly things,” Raffi wiggled her fingers playfully. There was no response from the xB and Raffi let the gesture fade, “you might have heard of them since you wrote the books on astrometrics.” Seven squinted at the night sky through the glass. Cold points of light burned back. Like light through cheap fabric. Like dead pixels. “That’s just communication satellites.” Seven said, uncertainty creeping into her voice, as she struggled to remember constellations. “They’re not,” The realisation weighed cold and heavy in her chest. “I didn’t even recognise them.”

And then THAT got scrapped, or indefinitely put on the back burner.

Then there was the confrontation with the Borg Queen on La Sirena and I started writing Traveling Light, a fic from Seven's POV while she's bleeding out:

The thing that isn’t Agnes is talking to itself.  It’s voice flitting in and out of bargaining tones. You try to listen closer but blood rushes in your ears instead.

After all those half finished attempts, I finally settled on a theme; Raffi recording a message to Rios, about his choices, that she'll never deliver.

It's a fic I'm proud of, but it took some getting there! Maybe I'll get back to finishing and posting some of the stories I started for that fest. But your ask really reminded me that although I submitted about 1000 for my entry... the behind the scenes word count (and fic count!) was a lot higher!

Ask meme