Valjiir

[Valka]

The last three letters...

Ah. That's not a word we run into very often in Canada, at least not within the last few generations. I had to firmly tell my grandmother to stop reciting a rhyme that included it because even though it might have been okay when she was young, it's definitely not okay now.

[Mylochka]

I read The Dragon and Saint Del last night, so a few remarks are in order.
I like that Chekov is getting his Valjiir due here.  The business about his chatting-up technique in bars was a nice integration of the brash young man seen in, for example, I, Mudd and The Trouble with Tribbles and the uptight Spock acolyte of, for example, The Way to Eden.  Mylochka, I do have to say that you almost always write the latter, serious, Chekov, and that I'd like to see more of the side of him that was a brash, hot-headed kid who more often appeared on the show.

Chekov is a funny little fellow, too, who liked to mess with people's heads for fun.  Witness that moment in (I think it was) Fridays Child when he made another "it was a Russian inwention" remark and grinned like a possum when no one could see it as he bent back to look into Spock's science viewer.  (Reminds me of how happy you can make a dedicated punster with applause in the form of groans, verbal abuse and death threats.)  He is the sober and studious young officer you like to write, but he is also brash and ballsy and has a subtle sense of humor not incompatible with typical RL Russian sarcasm.  I see him taking a lot less of Del's crap than in this story, and far less defensively, but ready with a snarky crack.  (Note that this is not an area where I think the actor is the authority, but Walter Koenig has said that he vastly prefers the hot-headed party Pavel.)  Spock's sidekick, sure, but with brass and droll wit.  He is someone who terrible things happen to, canonically, and we saw typically Russian pessimism from him on the show sometimes (The Deadly Years); work those things in, and give us a richer, deeper Chekov.  Thank you in advance.

I'm glad you're enjoying Chekov in this one.  As you know, I really love writing this character. I've always been grateful that he was such an unimportant character to the writers of the series and the movies that they didn't catch that they were writing him so inconsistently.  The result is that rather than just being a boring, one-dimensional background character, he's a background character who is sometimes nose-to-the-grindstone I-wanna-grow-up-to-be-Admiral-James-T-Spock and sometimes Mr.-Russian-Jokes-drink-vodka-and-chase-girls. Between those two extremes, there's a lot of room for a fanfic writer to speculate. 

This particular story doesn't show his pessimistic side, no.  I've written others where that aspect of his personality came out more, but in general, I do think he tends to be pretty positive in the long run -- particularly about all things Star Fleet.

[Buster's Uncle]

You totally do pessimistic - just not so much with the brash.

The movies would have done him a greater disservice by leaving him out entirely like the cartoon did, but that is about what it would take.  The man was supposed to, in original concept and leaving out Davy Jones, be a young Kirk-type who would grow up to be Kirk.  (And young Kirk was indeed "positively grim" as established in both Shore Leave and Where No Man Has Gone Before, but the Kirk we knew was a big gambler ["Risk is our Business." -Return to Tomorrow] who you just know had a brash streak under the grim in his youth.  Still waters run deep.)  The P.C. in the movies wasn't a Captain, when he should have been maybe a Commodore by TUC, which is yet another reason that in my universe nothing happened after WoK.

You know, there's a very Valjiir idea in there when you run together the openness Del finds in Chekov's mind and the fact that terrible things always happen to him that make him scream.  Perhaps there is something special about our boy Pavel, and none of that is a coincidence, but some paranormal factor involving the universe needing him to grow to be something, and that something involves vulnerability and learning from same.

[Valka]

Mylochka, I play around on the Zwinky site sometimes, and came up with this homage to Jilla (when she and Sulu were playing Good Queen Bess and Sir Francis Drake). I realize I didn't get the skin color quite right, but that site doesn't allow color mixing for skin tones:

[Buster's Uncle]

Would you like me to take a pass at silvering her skin?

[Valka]

Yes, please.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, I took a run at it.  Mylochka can probably do better, having a superior hand with the dodge/burn tool.

[Mylochka]

Oh, my gosh!  That is just too adorable for words!!  Nice job of enhancing the silver tones, Buncle! :win:

You should send this to Cher.

[Mylochka]

Okay, here's my two pixels worth....

[Valka]

Beautiful! 

[Mylochka]

You know, there's a very Valjiir idea in there when you run together the openness Del finds in Chekov's mind and the fact that terrible things always happen to him that make him scream.  Perhaps there is something special about our boy Pavel, and none of that is a coincidence, but some paranormal factor involving the universe needing him to grow to be something, and that something involves vulnerability and learning from same.

Well, actually, we've done some thinking about that... sort of... Before I started writing, it was established that Del and Chekov were roommates at the Academy and then again shared a cabin during the time that Del was on the Enterprise.  I was intrigued by this because the two of them have such different personalities (... as well as because I really like Del and I really like Chekov...).  Although Chekov dates Daphne Gollub (who is a Valjiir original character) and plays a small part in many of the stories, he was still a very minor player in the Valjiir series, so I felt free to flesh out his character.  One thing that I stressed in the first stories that I wrote was that -- as a complete contrast to Del -- he had zero extrasensory abilities.

Cher made an observation one day about 0% being just the other side of the coin from 100% and that got us to thinking about the possibilities of what being a absolute psychic null might entail.  We posit that almost everyone has a little bit of some sort of ability to read the energetic emanations that other people send out -- flashes of insight, intuition, and empathy.  From that stand point, a person who can't sense anything at all ever becomes an exotic creature... And you know how much we love exotic creatures in the Valjiir world....

There's a story that I wrote later that comes earlier in the continuity that deals with this sort of stuff that I'd like to hear your views on.... I'll have to dig around for it a little...

[Buster's Uncle]

Lovely job with her chest.  I highlighted there, but yours is far more accomplished.  It may be my rotten eyesight, but did you do much of anything else?

[Mylochka]

You totally do pessimistic - just not so much with the brash.

The movies would have done him a greater disservice by leaving him out entirely like the cartoon did, but that is about what it would take.  The man was supposed to, in original concept and leaving out Davy Jones, be a young Kirk-type who would grow up to be Kirk.  (And young Kirk was indeed "positively grim" as established in both Shore Leave and Where No Man Has Gone Before, but the Kirk we knew was a big gambler ["Risk is our Business." -Return to Tomorrow] who you just know had a brash streak under the grim in his youth.  Still waters run deep.)  The P.C. in the movies wasn't a Captain, when he should have been maybe a Commodore by TUC, which is yet another reason that in my universe nothing happened after WoK.

Sorry for responding in two posts, but I needed some time to think about the "brash" thing.  You're absolutely right that this is an essential part of the character.  He not only enthusiastically performs his own duties; he frequently offers to do other people's jobs as well (even offering to help Kirk give Lt. Palamas a "you gotta dump Apollo" speech in his very first appearance).  In the Abramstrek movies, they've got the character boiled down to someone who literally runs down corridors yelling, "I can do that!" So, yeah, brash is something that stands out to people when they see Chekov.

You and I -- in conversations where we actually spoke to each other rather than writing messages from different rooms of the same house -- have talked about how Chekov is one of the several successors to Gary Mitchell, whose brashness was in part the death of him... (You can go more into the Gary Mitchell think if you want to)

What I had to think about is how I'm not writing "brash"... In "The Dragon and St. Del" Chekov is certainly active.  He is perhaps the most active character in the entire piece -- trying to fix the shuttle, diving out of the shuttlecraft to avoid being eaten, showing off his marksman skills, but no, you're right, he doesn't seem brash.

I think I personally am put off by the dumb, tone-deaf qualities of brash characters... although that would certainly go along with what I've been saying about his lack of empathy.  I think I do show him as being over-confident, but it's a very quiet sort of arrogance as in the following passage:

“Got it,” Chekov said, making the sort of big, showy arc with his arm as he took a bead on his target that people quickly learn not to do when there was even a slight chance that they might miss.

“Yeah.” Del leveled his weapon with the sort of movement preferred by normal mortals.

I'll have to think more about Chekov's brashness and ways to work it in.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ah.  This is a central point I don't think you've ever made before - the brash kid is a dumbutt, and that leaves you cold.  Interesting.

You need to reconcile the dumbutt in your head, clearly...

[Mylochka]

Lovely job with her chest.  I highlighted there, but yours is far more accomplished.  It may be my rotten eyesight, but did you do much of anything else?

Instead of just using the dodge tool, I also used the smudge tool to soften the lines.  I lightened inside the irises to make her eyes look more grey. I changed the shape of her lips a little, then highlighted her hair and added a little more saturation to it. I highlighted areas on the dress and added some "twinkles" to the areas where she's got jewelry to make them stand out more.

Put your glasses on. It looks nice!