The long shot. That rare beast that feeds the need-to-know right now, but with the luxury of length and time.
Speaking of luxury, I feel that I am am occupying rare space, in that at the mention of ONU, I experienced a complete realignment of how I read the rest of the fic. While everyone else ASSUMED they were talking to WILL Riker, I alone had the privileged information on the REAL story. It was TOM. Tom Riker the awkward mistake. The one who made poor choices.
I love the slight parallel between this fic and Bitter Fruit. The story of outsiders bonding, and then following their own paths in life. While I expected Marnell and Tom to ride off into the sunset, it was even more satisfying that they did not. Again, same for Marnell’s decision to follow a more conventional path away from Starfleet after the uprising and death of the Cardassian cadet.
You covered so many details brilliantly. Tom’s austere lifestyle, severe to the point that his friend must insist he take payment. I wonder if this is a carryover of self-loathing, did not deserve it. Many of us are inhibited by this debilitating need to diminish our worth. It’s usually started by others, and we often deliver the most damaging blows to ourselves.
Your work that deals with refugees, shame and honor is always spot on. Jeff, the kid with the drunk father saw someone in Marnell with whom he could boost himself - to be superior- in order to hide his own shame. You see this with poor whites in the South, folks who took solace in knowing that there were always more severely impoverished Black people whom they could reign supreme over. In many ways Jeff was more fragile than Marnell, who had to wear his difference without choice.
I thought about Marnell’s grandfather. I recently walked through a cemetery in which many holocaust survivors are buried, quietly reciting their stories to the person walking alongside of me - stories of sacrifice and survival. At the same time, I was remembering a lot of what my Elder taught me about sacrifice, burdens and choices. Often during migration of old, elderly Natives would fail to keep up, so they would just drift back and find their place to die. They knew that to slow down the tribe’s migration would be to endanger them all. I viewed the grandfather as making this choice. As long as he was alive, he was a burden to his daughter, disabling her and Marnell from escaping the increasingly oppressive environment. I believe that he took his life to save his daughter and grandson- to release them of the burden.
I feel that there are many opportunities to explore the gaps between the lives of the characters. We have Tom, Onu and the Gul from the camp. I would love to know what became of them in the interim between the camp and the present. Actually, as far as OC go, I would love more insight into Onu’s background. She reminds of those beasts like Arbat that war and circumstance create, often with forks in the road that were eventually inaccessible. I love villains with a backstory that makes you begin to question who the real villains are at the midway point. The muddy gray area is my favorite place to dwell.
I hope that this is not the end of the line for these characters. There is still so much to tell.
I knew plenty of Jeffs. It was a weird spot to be in as a kid -- you see these guys who are obviously struggling and lying their asses off to make themselves seem cool and gain some acceptance, and you feel bad for them, recognize that you share some of the same struggles -- but at the same time, you're gay, or you're black, or you're Jewish, and this kid might relate to you deeply, might crave your nonjudgmental acceptance of him, but he'll also beat you up or bully you just as quick, if it makes the other kids like him more.
Your thoughts on Marnell's grandfather are very different from Mrs. Him's (see other comments) but I think between the two of you, you've got a good picture. Yours is a touch too noble. Mrs. Him's takes the nobility out of it, which isn't quite right. I think Marnell's grandfather was like an old German veteran during the rise of the Nazi party. He had lived his life as an honorable soldier fighting in "good" wars, and then he watched this insidious evil rise in his military ... and he went right along with it. But at the end, when all was lost, he knew that his daughter and grandson were being hindered by him, and he knew they had no chance of receiving asylum if he was with them. The suicide was his last honorable act, a remnant of the soldier he used to be.
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Lazarus Wed 19 Jul 2023 05:18AM UTC
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jamaharon Wed 19 Jul 2023 03:37PM UTC
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