Across (L/R, E)

[rosecathy1.livejournal.com]

Across
Lister/Rimmer. Explicit. Warning: Mentions of past child abuse.

Summary: AU-ish. Lister works on the Space Corps test base on Mimas, which has specialised for years in interdimensional travel and reconnaissance. Occasionally, their ace pilot comes across a Red Dwarf.

Honestly, though, the setting is mostly an excuse to write fluff/porn. There's so much more I wanted to put in this story but I...yeah. Sometimes there's just no room. I hope it's coherent at least!

Comments

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

I like this a lot. The fluff and the sex are both lovely. :)

But I'm feeling stupid because I've read this twice and I still don't totally get it. :o

(Also, it's not showing up as the latest fic on AO3 and there wasn't a notification on the tag on Tumblr for some reason. I think that may be affecting your hit count.)

EDIT: I understand the major plot twist, just not the significance of the card at the end or why older Kochanski wouldn't have figured it out sooner.

[rosecathy1.livejournal.com]

Ahahahaha I thought I could avoid adding any more scenes and still have it make sense. ;_; You're not stupid, I just got burnt out.

Warning: Ramble incoming


From Ace's point of view, it's right after Lister's birthday, which is when the abduction took place. Because of timeline issues/causality issues/the need to avoid having two copies of the same person in the same dimension, she had to wait until then to come and rescue him and the others from Red Dwarf. I should add that although I'm not totally clear on how all the time travel and time dilation stuff would have worked, I'm assuming it wasn't possible to jump back in time, regardless of dimension. Therefore, Ace couldn't have gone back in the other universe's timeline to bring L and R home before they had been stuck for 20+ years.

As for older Kochanski, I admit it's not super plausible that she didn't figure it out sooner. That said, it's a combination of:

1) The topic wasn't discussed in detail and had become somewhat irrelevant by the time she joined the crew (assuming a timeline roughly similar to that of the show, so about 10 years into their total time on Red Dwarf). Also, I see the Holly in this story as less "with it" than canon!Holly, so the crew wouldn't have nearly as much meaningful interaction with him as they did in canon.

2) It was important for Lister to avoid the awkward, hurtful "Well, I guess you're an okay imitation of my best friend, whom I miss desperately" thing (although some of that does peek through, as she tells Ace).

3) Not to channel Steven Moffat too much -_- but there is a paradox at work: L and R will have learned from Ace that the other Kochanski didn't know about their origins, so it's sort of preordained that they will keep her in the dark. For the same reason, they had to maintain the deception with Ace until they were sure she knew everything, which doesn't happen until the end of the story.

Whew. So I've had the AO3 problem before. It's due to a disparity between the "completed" date ( = when the final chapter of the draft was uploaded) and the posting date. It eventually fixed itself last time and will this time as well...I hope.

EDIT: Temporarily marking the story as incomplete fixed the ordering problem, but I don't know whether that'll make it come up on the Tumblr feed. We'll see.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Ah, I get it now - I think. Thanks for such a detailed reply. :)

[felineranger.livejournal.com]

I love 'Ace' Kochanski, I think it's a brilliant concept. I think it's only right that she and Spanners would still be best friends :-)

[rosecathy1.livejournal.com]

I know, right? Kudos to whoever thought of it first and to those who explored it before me. :) I suspect there are other Ace Kochanski fics than the two I mentioned in my notes, floating around on ff.net and personal websites.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I meant to mention how much I enjoyed KK as Ace. There's absolutely no reason why not. :)

I hope Gingertime finishes that fic. It started so well.

[lordvalerymimes.livejournal.com]

Just seconding this. I'd never read an Ace Kochanski fic before. I quite like the idea of Kochanski as Ace, especially Chloe's version of Kochanski. :)

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Seriously, read that fic by Gingertime which RoseCathy linked to. Even if it never gets finished it's still great, and it is Chloe's version. :)

[rosecathy1.livejournal.com]

Yes yes I highly recommend gingertime's fic.
I pictured my Ace as Chloe as well. :)