Oh man, me too. :D It was also remarkably difficult to get myself back into the headspace I was in when I wrote the story enough to answer the question -- not only because I've changed fandoms several times since then, but I was also in a very different headspace regarding those characters and their relationship(s) at the beginning of my time in fandom compared to the end of it. The only thing I really remember now about that part of the story is that we hadn't met Jeannie in canon yet, but at my current rate of posting chapters the first Jeannie episode was going to air well before I was done, so I wrote the Jeannie scenes in a desperate attempt to be as vague as possible so that I wouldn't be completely jossed when the episode aired.
Mostly pure bafflement. His thought processes at that point are just a long string of "!!!!!" and "D: D: D:" and "?????" And once he gets past the initial flatline of total befuddlement, he feels personally rejected ... with a lot more bafflement mixed in. He just really fundamentally does not get where Kerry is coming from here -- he doesn't understand Kerry's background and doesn't see why Kerry would see marriage as an illusion/delusion and why it has very little to do with him. He thinks that it has to be about him personally, but it's not.
... which actually is one of the fundamental building blocks in Kerry and Owen's difference in worldview. Owen sees their entire relationship in terms of both of them as individuals; he doesn't get the systemic context. Kerry sees them both as cogs in a fundamentally fucked-up system and has trouble moving past that to write his own happy(ish) ending. I tried to keep the book true to both viewpoints depending on whose head I was in -- I mean, Kerry's definitely not wrong and Owen is failing to
( ... )
This was really interesting and exactly how I had read it!
Interestingly, I am one of your readers who found Kerry the more sympathetic -- well, sympathetic is the wrong word, because I did completely empathize with where Owen was coming from as well, but I definitely did read Owen as the one who had more growth to do in re: understanding his partner and where Kerry was coming from and, you know, personal growth related to their relationship. (If that makes sense!)
in A child in the photograph why did u decide to make Peter's dad an alcoholic. I am bit curious since Peter does not have any aversion to getting a little high on the show
Interestingly enough, this is actually my prevailing (though completely non-canonical) backstory for Peter. What we know of his backstory on the show is that he grew up in a blue-collar household with a dad who was a bricklayer, and nearly ALL the guys I know in physical blue-collar professions are regular drinkers, occasionally bordering on functional (or non-functional) alcoholic. Those kinds of guys don't talk out their problems; they self-medicate with alcohol, both from the physical damage of their daily work and the emotional stresses that they don't really have another outlet for. Plus, it's a social bonding activity: finish a day on the job, have a few beers with the boys. The way Peter drinks on the show -- not to excess, but it's clear that coming home and cracking open a beer is his regular after-work routine -- also fits with the idea he grew up in a social milieu where regular drinking was a thing
( ... )
This is interesting to me, not just because it makes sense, but because I've always considered it likely (though also completely non-canonical) that Neal's mom was an alcoholic. She doesn't have to have been. Parents can be absent/neglectful without being alcoholics. But she went through such a stressful time, with her husband being accused of murder, going into witness protection, starting a new life, and being a single parent, that it doesn't seem like an unlikely way to cope.
And now I'm toying with posts about how my headcanons for Neal Peter's childhood are similar in a lot of way, but they coped so differently.
I like that! I'd honestly welcome more fic exploring Neal's relationship with his mother without making her a bogeyman. It's absolutely canon that he had an abusive, neglectful childhood, but fandom (being fandom and therefore not really dealing in shades of gray) goes straight past a regular unhappy childhood to make his mother the worst human being ever. So far we've only ever gotten that relationship through the eyes of a hurt child -- and yes, his mother treated him badly, that's total canon, but also clearly had a whole array of her own issues; kids don't see the whole picture and tend to view their parents as one-dimensional paragons rather than people, and it'd be interesting to get a more nuanced view of that relationship.
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... which actually is one of the fundamental building blocks in Kerry and Owen's difference in worldview. Owen sees their entire relationship in terms of both of them as individuals; he doesn't get the systemic context. Kerry sees them both as cogs in a fundamentally fucked-up system and has trouble moving past that to write his own happy(ish) ending. I tried to keep the book true to both viewpoints depending on whose head I was in -- I mean, Kerry's definitely not wrong and Owen is failing to ( ... )
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and that's very interesting. thanks
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Interestingly, I am one of your readers who found Kerry the more sympathetic -- well, sympathetic is the wrong word, because I did completely empathize with where Owen was coming from as well, but I definitely did read Owen as the one who had more growth to do in re: understanding his partner and where Kerry was coming from and, you know, personal growth related to their relationship. (If that makes sense!)
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And now I'm toying with posts about how my headcanons for Neal Peter's childhood are similar in a lot of way, but they coped so differently.
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