popstar!Sulu fic #1
The Things I Do For You
How do you deal with fame on a daily basis?
I can't go out anymore, except in disguise. I love to wear those glasses with the mustache, and I have a vast array1 of wigs in all sorts of different styles and colors. I've also got those huge shades, and fake pointy ears, you know the Vulcan kind. Sometimes I even go out in a skirt! [Laughs] No, I don't want to overstate my importance but I'm kind of used to it because I've been famous for most of my life. I think I'm about as normal as you can get, and I think most people are really respectful. I mean, sometimes when I go out to get a coffee2 people come up to me to say hi but that's completely harmless, you know? And really flattering.
2251 is the year in which everything changed. Pavel was on his way home from school one normal school day, it was a Wednesday, as he recalled, for he had one hour of Physical Education that day. Their teacher had made them play soccer, and Pavel was never really a team sport person, or a ball sport sort of person, for he was born with a bulls-eye on his forehead. He was on the Metro, it was an extraordinarily hot day. The summer holidays were near, with the final hurdle of exams to cross. Pavel liked exams, for it meant minimal interaction with classmates.
In the dark tunnels the windows of the train became viewscreens.3 Some music program was on, and they were debuting the new music video from some American boyband called Los Rayos Cósmicos, The Cosmic Rays. The song was called Sunday By The Bay, the video opened with three teenage boys riding in a car down the Golden Gate Bridge. Pavel was entranced by the catchy tune, the boppy beat, and as he walked home from the station he found himself tapping and singing along to the chorus, I wanna be your lemon drizzle muffin/you can be my bruschetta/you're not like evil gym teachers/you have no vendetta.
When he went home he googled the band.4 That was how he found out that the band members, Hikaru Sulu, Miguel Ramirez and Tim Burnton were all too young to drive5 and they were being towed by another vehicle when they filmed the car scene. He also found out their birthdays, their favorite colors and how many pets they had. They went to normal school like everyone, except when they were on tour. They were backed by Ellis McKenzie, the manager with the Midas touch.
It was the start of Pavel's love affair with San Francisco.
If you weren't a singer, what would you like to do?
I would be a regular kid in school like everyone else! There are so many things I like to do, some of which I try to do now, as a hobby. I sound like an old man when I say this, but I really love plants, so maybe I would be a botanist. But I guess I can do that when I'm old and my singing days are over. I like fencing too, but I don't think I'd get anywhere with that. I'm pretty good at physics, maybe I would end up a scientist like my mother.
Pavel was infatuated with Hikaru Sulu, the lead singer and guitarist of Los Rayos Cósmicos. Night and day he followed online communities for celebrity news 6, heart hopscotching whenever there were new promo pics. He'd printed out a good many of the pictures and stuck them to his wall, in addition to the huge official posters he scrimped pocket credits for, skipping lunch every Tuesday and Thursday. His favorite picture of Hikaru was the one for the Summer Caravan album, where he was at some beach with a tall glass of lemonade. His swim shorts were patterned in Julia sets7. Miguel and Tim were in the picture as well, but next to Hikaru they seemed to fade into the background. This picture he pasted on the wall right next to his bed, so that when he went to bed, for he slept on his side, the first and last thing he saw each day was Hikaru Sulu.
What are traits you admire in a person?
Bravery. I admire it when someone isn't afraid to be him or herself even when other people frown upon it. It takes a special sort of courage. Besides that, hmm, maybe intelligence--I like it when people are great conversationalists. Loves to eat--so many people are still afraid to enjoy their food. Before eating they would say, oh, this has so much sugar I shouldn't be eating this. I don't like that. You should always enjoy what you eat and not preface it with meaningless disclaimers8. I suppose that's part of bravery too, so yeah, the special sort of courage.
Pavel had a special sticker given to him by his best and only friend9 Irina Galliulin, it featured the three of them leaping out of a dynamic yellow and blue radial-striped background. The sticker was affixed on the inner pocket of the folder in which Pavel kept his homework.
Between classes (Russian History and Chemistry) one day, some bullies came over and emptied all the contents of his homework folder on the floor. Pavel was three years younger than the rest of his classmates, and quite the outcast. When the bullies saw the Los Rayos Cósmicos sticker they mocked him. One of them sang 'oooo girl' while pointing outwards with a swivel of the wrist. Pavka's a faaag, they sang, to the tune of Love Parameters, currently in the top ten of most viewed videos10 worldwide. Pavka11 is a homogay.
He ran to the toilet and burst into tears. He loved Russia but why oh why did the people have to be so horrid. They were so behind the times. In America and the EU, it was perfectly legal for two people of the same sex to marry and raise children. Miguel Ramirez had two mothers and they were such a cute and happy family when they appeared on that talkshow.
He would be brave, Pavel thought. He would be brave and stand up to these bullies because Hikaru Sulu admired brave people. He was emboldened for about five seconds, thereafter he despaired of himself for being such a fool.12 Pavel Chekov is a fool for doing things because Hikaru Sulu says he likes it. Pavel Chekov is a fool because Hikaru Sulu doesn't even know he exists. And even if Hikaru somehow learned of his existence, he wouldn't care because Pavel Chekov is a coward who bawls the instant someone laughs at him.
How do you find Moscow so far?
It's great. It's really great. Moscow has been very friendly to us. The people have been so helpful. Before we came here we were told to expect some surliness but no, I'm really glad to say that it's been such a lovely experience. The pity is that we don't have more time to spend here, we're doing only three shows and after that it's off to Italy. We went to the Kremlin yesterday, and took the usual touristy photos at Saint Basil's Cathedral. Tomorrow we might see some of the restored skyscrapers that were damaged during World War Three--a sombre history lesson.13
Damn those Muscovites, they got everything. What was wrong with Piter? No one went to Piter.14 If only they went to his home city. On the day the concert tickets went on sale Pavel glued himself to his computer hours before, programming proxies to hit the retry button if the server died on him. He didn't even think of how he would get down there, he would find a way anyhow. He had the ticket for three weeks before he finally told his mother that he had them, and she went purple in the face at his audacity. Now she was forced to accompany him to Moscow, because he was only twelve.
Hikaru Sulu would be turning sixteen in Moscow. The thought filled Pavel with such longing, for he heard that some business oligarch's daughter15 had organized an exclusive party in one of the city's top clubs. To his fevered mind he thought fate meant something, that Hikaru should celebrate his birthday in his Russia, that in some oblique way they were meant to be. Pavel fantasized about bumping into Hikaru at the historic GUM, where Hikaru would be shopping for those artistic t-shirts he always wore. Pavel would be wearing a t-shirt with the periodic table, and Hikaru would find it endearingly witty. Hikaru would ask him along to the birthday party.
At the concert he swore their eyes met. It was the most magical moment of his entire life. Later in the hotel Irina, who had tagged along, swore Hikaru locked eyes with her. They argued for the better part of an hour, until his mother came along and told them off for making so much noise.
You're taking a break from the entertainment industry. Why? Your recent movie was a success.
That's a tough question to answer without disappointing many longtime fans. I guess the best answer I can give is that I think I've reached the point where I feel like my career has plateaued. I don't want to stagnate or worse, be turned into a parody of myself. I'm not too enthusiastic to tell you about the family aspect, but I'll admit that yeah, it was a factor in the decision to take a break.
For a week Pavel cried himself to sleep. While they left open the possibility of a future reunion, he knew in his heart that this was the end of Los Rayos Cósmicos. It had to do with the divorce between Hikaru's mother and father. The news of it was treated as insignificant but in the movie, Don't Stop Believin'16, there was this line where Hikaru's character, Pierre17, talks about missing his father who worked in Deep Space 918, and the line was delivered with such genuine emotion that it made Pavel uncomfortable, for it broached on reality. He could see, and so maybe everyone else saw it as well but Pavel was allowed to pretend he was the only one, that the divorce devastated Sulu.
The love affair with San Francisco, however, carried on, and Pavel applied to Starfleet Academy. It was a joyous day when the acceptance letter reached the house. His mother, who up till then often chided him for being the cause of her kidney stones19, went all round the apartment block boasting about her son. It was a funny thing, some cosmic irony, that only when he was about to leave Mother Russia that Mother Russia should finally embrace him.
There was a moratorium on news about Hikaru Sulu. For a while Chekov would avidly check the messageboards and forums but soon there was nothing new and so he threw the whole crazy fan phase behind him. Rumor had it, and it was one of the last few rumors, that Hikaru's mother paid the media to cease the speculation about her child. The only other time Hikaru was in the news was when some blogger made a post suggesting that he was dating Emma Love, of the girlband 4BEES20.
And Pavel thought he was truly over it, when it came to pass that Hikaru Sulu was enrolled in Starfleet just like he was and he didn't feel anything. Their classes did not overlap, and Hikaru had a close knit group of friends on campus and didn't venture out of it much. There was an air of finality to the whole thing, when Pavel realized he had outgrown the childish, heady phase of his youth and it was rude to hound Hikaru about his past fame.
Then comes the day they receive a distress call from Vulcan, and Pavel is assigned to the Enterprise. Pavel doesn't even notice the guy who slips into the seat on the other side of the helm until he botches up.
All of a sudden, stupidly, self-consciously, his heart starts to pump at a rapid speed, so violently he thinks he's going to collapse forward on the console at any moment, his breath catches, hormones ablaze, thoughts whizzing around so fast he fears he's going to make a totally embarrassing mistake too. He doesn't, thankfully. But even when making mistakes, Hikaru Sulu is totally perfect21.
originally posted here
Notes/commentary:
1 There's an interview with Colin Morgan (Merlin of BBC's Merlin) in which he talks about having acquired a 'vast array' of scarves in Season 2. I liked the term 'vast array'.
2 Sulu is like, fourteen in here? Why the hell is he drinking coffee? Let's pretend it's an ice blended.
3 When I was v. young, as young as Chekov in this, they started to install tv screens on the subway station platforms from where I'm from, and they actually played music videos. I remember watching Dire Straits' Money for Nothing, and possibly Michael Jackson's Black or White.
4 Google lives!
5 If anyone happens to remember Mandy Moore, she was too young to drive in the music video for Candy.
6 ONTD lives!
7 What are Julia sets?
8 My Visual Communication final year project (which I completed Jan 2008) was based on the topic of eating disorders. I found out about the prevalence of disordered eating in today's world, and conveniently hijacked Sulu's interview to spread the message.
9 The line "best and only friend" is stolen from a marvellous Australian claymation movie called Mary and Max. In the movie the line is spoken by Max, a lonesome New Yorker struggling with Asperger's. He is Mary's penpal, and he says to Mary, in one of the most impactful moments in the movie, "You are my best friend. You are my only friend." Watch the trailer here!
10 Youtube lives!
11Most of fandom knows Pavel's diminutive to be Pasha. I'm not too good with Russian, but as I was googling, I found out that the -ka suffix tends to be used in a derogatory/less familiar manner. As he's being bullied here, Pavka it is.
12 I can totally relate.
13 In my imagined universe, World War Three happens around the year 2050, when global warming, depletion of oil reserves, shortage of food and global poverty all come to a head and explode in one mega war over the hoarding of resources. The absolutely frightening thing is that this is very likely to happen. Do something if you can.
Interestingly, in Moscow now, skyscraper projects are being abandoned due to lack of financing from the global financial crisis.
14 If you're familiar with the people who write Chekov/Sulu, we all call St Petersburg 'Piter'. I did a bit of googling and it doesn't seem to be an official nickname at all. How then did this come about? It seems all of us have read David Benioff's City of Thieves, as googling will indicate that it is the only thing around that calls Piter 'Piter'.
15 If you know who Roman Abramovich is. I read about his daughter's 16th birthday celebrations in...Tatler and it was obscenely extravagant.
16 The song by Journey! Covered by Glee!
17 Why Pierre? Pierre Bezukhov, of course.
18 Deep Space Nine!
19 This is a reference to Jonathan Safran-Foer's Everything is Illuminated: Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always spleening her.
20 Sadly there is no good explanation for this. It's not written into the fic but you know the movie that featured Hikaru Sulu as Pierre? Emma Love played the love interest called Natasha. Yeah, Chekov virulently HATES her. I couldn't think of a good name for her girlband but there is a Korean girlband called 2NE1.
21 He is. When I wrote this fic, which was like, mid-July, I just thought it was something really fun to write. More than one month later I feel for John Cho as Chekov feels for popstar!Sulu. It's super embarrassing.
How do you deal with fame on a daily basis?
I can't go out anymore, except in disguise. I love to wear those glasses with the mustache, and I have a vast array1 of wigs in all sorts of different styles and colors. I've also got those huge shades, and fake pointy ears, you know the Vulcan kind. Sometimes I even go out in a skirt! [Laughs] No, I don't want to overstate my importance but I'm kind of used to it because I've been famous for most of my life. I think I'm about as normal as you can get, and I think most people are really respectful. I mean, sometimes when I go out to get a coffee2 people come up to me to say hi but that's completely harmless, you know? And really flattering.
2251 is the year in which everything changed. Pavel was on his way home from school one normal school day, it was a Wednesday, as he recalled, for he had one hour of Physical Education that day. Their teacher had made them play soccer, and Pavel was never really a team sport person, or a ball sport sort of person, for he was born with a bulls-eye on his forehead. He was on the Metro, it was an extraordinarily hot day. The summer holidays were near, with the final hurdle of exams to cross. Pavel liked exams, for it meant minimal interaction with classmates.
In the dark tunnels the windows of the train became viewscreens.3 Some music program was on, and they were debuting the new music video from some American boyband called Los Rayos Cósmicos, The Cosmic Rays. The song was called Sunday By The Bay, the video opened with three teenage boys riding in a car down the Golden Gate Bridge. Pavel was entranced by the catchy tune, the boppy beat, and as he walked home from the station he found himself tapping and singing along to the chorus, I wanna be your lemon drizzle muffin/you can be my bruschetta/you're not like evil gym teachers/you have no vendetta.
When he went home he googled the band.4 That was how he found out that the band members, Hikaru Sulu, Miguel Ramirez and Tim Burnton were all too young to drive5 and they were being towed by another vehicle when they filmed the car scene. He also found out their birthdays, their favorite colors and how many pets they had. They went to normal school like everyone, except when they were on tour. They were backed by Ellis McKenzie, the manager with the Midas touch.
It was the start of Pavel's love affair with San Francisco.
If you weren't a singer, what would you like to do?
I would be a regular kid in school like everyone else! There are so many things I like to do, some of which I try to do now, as a hobby. I sound like an old man when I say this, but I really love plants, so maybe I would be a botanist. But I guess I can do that when I'm old and my singing days are over. I like fencing too, but I don't think I'd get anywhere with that. I'm pretty good at physics, maybe I would end up a scientist like my mother.
Pavel was infatuated with Hikaru Sulu, the lead singer and guitarist of Los Rayos Cósmicos. Night and day he followed online communities for celebrity news 6, heart hopscotching whenever there were new promo pics. He'd printed out a good many of the pictures and stuck them to his wall, in addition to the huge official posters he scrimped pocket credits for, skipping lunch every Tuesday and Thursday. His favorite picture of Hikaru was the one for the Summer Caravan album, where he was at some beach with a tall glass of lemonade. His swim shorts were patterned in Julia sets7. Miguel and Tim were in the picture as well, but next to Hikaru they seemed to fade into the background. This picture he pasted on the wall right next to his bed, so that when he went to bed, for he slept on his side, the first and last thing he saw each day was Hikaru Sulu.
What are traits you admire in a person?
Bravery. I admire it when someone isn't afraid to be him or herself even when other people frown upon it. It takes a special sort of courage. Besides that, hmm, maybe intelligence--I like it when people are great conversationalists. Loves to eat--so many people are still afraid to enjoy their food. Before eating they would say, oh, this has so much sugar I shouldn't be eating this. I don't like that. You should always enjoy what you eat and not preface it with meaningless disclaimers8. I suppose that's part of bravery too, so yeah, the special sort of courage.
Pavel had a special sticker given to him by his best and only friend9 Irina Galliulin, it featured the three of them leaping out of a dynamic yellow and blue radial-striped background. The sticker was affixed on the inner pocket of the folder in which Pavel kept his homework.
Between classes (Russian History and Chemistry) one day, some bullies came over and emptied all the contents of his homework folder on the floor. Pavel was three years younger than the rest of his classmates, and quite the outcast. When the bullies saw the Los Rayos Cósmicos sticker they mocked him. One of them sang 'oooo girl' while pointing outwards with a swivel of the wrist. Pavka's a faaag, they sang, to the tune of Love Parameters, currently in the top ten of most viewed videos10 worldwide. Pavka11 is a homogay.
He ran to the toilet and burst into tears. He loved Russia but why oh why did the people have to be so horrid. They were so behind the times. In America and the EU, it was perfectly legal for two people of the same sex to marry and raise children. Miguel Ramirez had two mothers and they were such a cute and happy family when they appeared on that talkshow.
He would be brave, Pavel thought. He would be brave and stand up to these bullies because Hikaru Sulu admired brave people. He was emboldened for about five seconds, thereafter he despaired of himself for being such a fool.12 Pavel Chekov is a fool for doing things because Hikaru Sulu says he likes it. Pavel Chekov is a fool because Hikaru Sulu doesn't even know he exists. And even if Hikaru somehow learned of his existence, he wouldn't care because Pavel Chekov is a coward who bawls the instant someone laughs at him.
How do you find Moscow so far?
It's great. It's really great. Moscow has been very friendly to us. The people have been so helpful. Before we came here we were told to expect some surliness but no, I'm really glad to say that it's been such a lovely experience. The pity is that we don't have more time to spend here, we're doing only three shows and after that it's off to Italy. We went to the Kremlin yesterday, and took the usual touristy photos at Saint Basil's Cathedral. Tomorrow we might see some of the restored skyscrapers that were damaged during World War Three--a sombre history lesson.13
Damn those Muscovites, they got everything. What was wrong with Piter? No one went to Piter.14 If only they went to his home city. On the day the concert tickets went on sale Pavel glued himself to his computer hours before, programming proxies to hit the retry button if the server died on him. He didn't even think of how he would get down there, he would find a way anyhow. He had the ticket for three weeks before he finally told his mother that he had them, and she went purple in the face at his audacity. Now she was forced to accompany him to Moscow, because he was only twelve.
Hikaru Sulu would be turning sixteen in Moscow. The thought filled Pavel with such longing, for he heard that some business oligarch's daughter15 had organized an exclusive party in one of the city's top clubs. To his fevered mind he thought fate meant something, that Hikaru should celebrate his birthday in his Russia, that in some oblique way they were meant to be. Pavel fantasized about bumping into Hikaru at the historic GUM, where Hikaru would be shopping for those artistic t-shirts he always wore. Pavel would be wearing a t-shirt with the periodic table, and Hikaru would find it endearingly witty. Hikaru would ask him along to the birthday party.
At the concert he swore their eyes met. It was the most magical moment of his entire life. Later in the hotel Irina, who had tagged along, swore Hikaru locked eyes with her. They argued for the better part of an hour, until his mother came along and told them off for making so much noise.
You're taking a break from the entertainment industry. Why? Your recent movie was a success.
That's a tough question to answer without disappointing many longtime fans. I guess the best answer I can give is that I think I've reached the point where I feel like my career has plateaued. I don't want to stagnate or worse, be turned into a parody of myself. I'm not too enthusiastic to tell you about the family aspect, but I'll admit that yeah, it was a factor in the decision to take a break.
For a week Pavel cried himself to sleep. While they left open the possibility of a future reunion, he knew in his heart that this was the end of Los Rayos Cósmicos. It had to do with the divorce between Hikaru's mother and father. The news of it was treated as insignificant but in the movie, Don't Stop Believin'16, there was this line where Hikaru's character, Pierre17, talks about missing his father who worked in Deep Space 918, and the line was delivered with such genuine emotion that it made Pavel uncomfortable, for it broached on reality. He could see, and so maybe everyone else saw it as well but Pavel was allowed to pretend he was the only one, that the divorce devastated Sulu.
The love affair with San Francisco, however, carried on, and Pavel applied to Starfleet Academy. It was a joyous day when the acceptance letter reached the house. His mother, who up till then often chided him for being the cause of her kidney stones19, went all round the apartment block boasting about her son. It was a funny thing, some cosmic irony, that only when he was about to leave Mother Russia that Mother Russia should finally embrace him.
There was a moratorium on news about Hikaru Sulu. For a while Chekov would avidly check the messageboards and forums but soon there was nothing new and so he threw the whole crazy fan phase behind him. Rumor had it, and it was one of the last few rumors, that Hikaru's mother paid the media to cease the speculation about her child. The only other time Hikaru was in the news was when some blogger made a post suggesting that he was dating Emma Love, of the girlband 4BEES20.
And Pavel thought he was truly over it, when it came to pass that Hikaru Sulu was enrolled in Starfleet just like he was and he didn't feel anything. Their classes did not overlap, and Hikaru had a close knit group of friends on campus and didn't venture out of it much. There was an air of finality to the whole thing, when Pavel realized he had outgrown the childish, heady phase of his youth and it was rude to hound Hikaru about his past fame.
Then comes the day they receive a distress call from Vulcan, and Pavel is assigned to the Enterprise. Pavel doesn't even notice the guy who slips into the seat on the other side of the helm until he botches up.
All of a sudden, stupidly, self-consciously, his heart starts to pump at a rapid speed, so violently he thinks he's going to collapse forward on the console at any moment, his breath catches, hormones ablaze, thoughts whizzing around so fast he fears he's going to make a totally embarrassing mistake too. He doesn't, thankfully. But even when making mistakes, Hikaru Sulu is totally perfect21.
originally posted here
Notes/commentary:
1 There's an interview with Colin Morgan (Merlin of BBC's Merlin) in which he talks about having acquired a 'vast array' of scarves in Season 2. I liked the term 'vast array'.
2 Sulu is like, fourteen in here? Why the hell is he drinking coffee? Let's pretend it's an ice blended.
3 When I was v. young, as young as Chekov in this, they started to install tv screens on the subway station platforms from where I'm from, and they actually played music videos. I remember watching Dire Straits' Money for Nothing, and possibly Michael Jackson's Black or White.
4 Google lives!
5 If anyone happens to remember Mandy Moore, she was too young to drive in the music video for Candy.
6 ONTD lives!
7 What are Julia sets?
8 My Visual Communication final year project (which I completed Jan 2008) was based on the topic of eating disorders. I found out about the prevalence of disordered eating in today's world, and conveniently hijacked Sulu's interview to spread the message.
9 The line "best and only friend" is stolen from a marvellous Australian claymation movie called Mary and Max. In the movie the line is spoken by Max, a lonesome New Yorker struggling with Asperger's. He is Mary's penpal, and he says to Mary, in one of the most impactful moments in the movie, "You are my best friend. You are my only friend." Watch the trailer here!
10 Youtube lives!
11Most of fandom knows Pavel's diminutive to be Pasha. I'm not too good with Russian, but as I was googling, I found out that the -ka suffix tends to be used in a derogatory/less familiar manner. As he's being bullied here, Pavka it is.
12 I can totally relate.
13 In my imagined universe, World War Three happens around the year 2050, when global warming, depletion of oil reserves, shortage of food and global poverty all come to a head and explode in one mega war over the hoarding of resources. The absolutely frightening thing is that this is very likely to happen. Do something if you can.
Interestingly, in Moscow now, skyscraper projects are being abandoned due to lack of financing from the global financial crisis.
14 If you're familiar with the people who write Chekov/Sulu, we all call St Petersburg 'Piter'. I did a bit of googling and it doesn't seem to be an official nickname at all. How then did this come about? It seems all of us have read David Benioff's City of Thieves, as googling will indicate that it is the only thing around that calls Piter 'Piter'.
15 If you know who Roman Abramovich is. I read about his daughter's 16th birthday celebrations in...Tatler and it was obscenely extravagant.
16 The song by Journey! Covered by Glee!
17 Why Pierre? Pierre Bezukhov, of course.
18 Deep Space Nine!
19 This is a reference to Jonathan Safran-Foer's Everything is Illuminated: Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always spleening her.
20 Sadly there is no good explanation for this. It's not written into the fic but you know the movie that featured Hikaru Sulu as Pierre? Emma Love played the love interest called Natasha. Yeah, Chekov virulently HATES her. I couldn't think of a good name for her girlband but there is a Korean girlband called 2NE1.
21 He is. When I wrote this fic, which was like, mid-July, I just thought it was something really fun to write. More than one month later I feel for John Cho as Chekov feels for popstar!Sulu. It's super embarrassing.