Date: 03 Jul 2015 14:32 Title: Chapter 5 Distance (Blue)
Yesh. Relational instability combined with lack of confidence. Not pretty, but a place we can all emphathize with; at one point or another there has been a person we've been physically close to, close enough to touch, yet seem unable to communicate with at all.
Well-captured moment of a relationship here.
Author's Response:
Thank you - I hadn't originally meant for Preston to be vain and losing his mojo, but the actor is losing his hair (Billy Zane), so that worked for the prompt. Plus these are people who settled.
Date: 02 Jul 2015 16:55 Title: Chapter 5 Distance (Blue)
Aww. That last line was sad but well-done.
Relationships in a situation like this have got to be difficult. That was one thing I think Voyager didn't do enough to portray -- Janeway's refusal to be with Chakotay, for example, (at least ostensibly) hinged more on command structure than the reality that if it didn't work out, they'd be stuck together on that tiny ship for decades to come ... not just having to work together, but potentially watching each other move on with others who were close as family. That was a tiny ship, and the NX-01 is even smaller. I can see a lot of people saying, "okay, that's it, friends with benefits only, no emotional attachments" just to avoid the potential drama. (Not that it would always work out that way, but I could see them trying.) Starting a relationship under circumstances like this is a really loaded thing. You portray that well here.
Author's Response:
Oh, thank you.
The ratio is ugly and not fun - there are a lot of single (ostensibly) het guys aboard. I ended up 'solving' it partly with the Ikaaran women and partly with having some people open up their marriages. Lili does that anyway (spoiler alert), but others do, too, and so at the end of his life Archer is bringing chocolates to one of his junior tactical officers and flowers to a cartography crewman, and people just sort of shunt aside the worst of their jealousies as they feel they're petty when so many others are hurting. In the prime timeline, I have Malcolm refer to it as 'scraps from her table'.