Gestaltfic: Alexander. PG.

[roadstergal]

Title: Alexander.
Authors: kahvi and roadstergal
Rating: PG.
Disclaimer: We do not now and will never in the future own them or make any money from this.
Spoilers: Legion and Marooned.
Note: This came out of a discussion about being a Chief Eunuch. Set in VI.

It should feel normal. It should feel nice and calm and boring, but it didn't.

Comments

[kahvi]

First of all, thank you for all this lovely feedback! It is very much apreciated. :D

I think a lot of people gloss over the concept that the boys, like anyone, would try to analyse and understand each other, and a lot of the beauty of this story comes from seeing the characters through each other's eyes.
Yah - for us, this is part of the appeal of co-writing a story; you get to explore the minds and points of view of each character in a very unique way. They don't speak the same language; truly they don't. It's fascinating.

I had to read that a couple of times before I realized what was wrong; the "it" in the magazine sentence is superflous. It should read: "he started leafing through the magazine he'd picked up on his way out of his quarters" ;)

Oh gods, yes; the sherbet! I loved that too. roadstergal at her best.

I think Rimmer shares his past life story a little easily with Kryten
roadstergal can answer this one better than me, but as I saw it, I don't think he's that aware of the fact that he is sharing it. He's just getting riled up by Kryten, and by the end of their argument, he just wants to make sure that damn meddling mechanoid understands that Rimmer knows exactly what he's talking about! He gets kind of lost in his anger and irritation. But again, I'm not the one with the Rimmspertise!

Also, I don't know why Lister “couldn't not tell Rimmer the truth” about what he's read. [...]I can see Lister not understanding that he's being cruel until it is too late, and then not wanting to back down to Rimmer.
Lister doesn't understand it at all. I don't think he ever would, even if Rimmer tried to explain it to him. As he sees it, he's doing Rimmer a favor. He doesn't understand why Rimmer would want to believe in something that isn't true. Lister is written as a die-hard atheist, which is part of why I think he'd have a major problem with this. Not only is Rimmer losing himself in a past life, which Lister thinks is a load of rubbish anyway; he's losing himself in a past life that could not have taken place even if there was such a thing. He doesn't understand (as he says) why someone would possibly not want the truth; would prefer unreality.

As I see it, Lister can't not tell Rimmer the truth, because to Lister, not doing so would be morally objectionable. And Lister has this almost pathological need to see justice (or what he sees as justice) done.

it seems like a lot of Lister's cruelty to Rimmer comes either out of humour/boredom or as a retort to something that Rimmer's said/done.
I disagree. Well, not about the last bit; he does take revenge. But I think most of Lister's actions that end up being cruel are just his way of trying to Do The Right Thing (as above). Though yes; some of it might be out of frustration too (as you say; humor and boredom), but I think part of that is him wishing (as you noted in your story that I hope to see here soon ;) ) that Rimmer would just lighten up and 'get with it' as it were.

We alternate POV religiously from paragraph to paragraph; the person speaking is the person with the POV. In 99% of all cases, that means POV will alternate between paragraphs. In some rare cases, you'll get a chunk of paragraphs from one POV. But this one follows the pattern, so I'm a little curious why this one in particular doesn't work for you?

Again, thank you for taking the time to comment so extensively; it's what we feed on. *munch munch* ;)