Not overselling it was definitely the hardest part in writing this (otoh, getting into sideways!Ben's head went unexpectedly more smoothly than I'd thought) and I must have re-written those last few paragraphs about a dozen times before I was more or less satisfied. At some point, I did have versions with either of both of them saying "I love you", before I threw that out altogether along with most of the rest of the dialogue. :) So chiming in when it comes to the strength of understatement.
Existential reflection: this one came from my own pondering that it's hardly possible for all of the people in the sideways world that we were shown to be both constructs in someone else's afterlife, and be in the process of crafting their own. Anthony Cooper, for one, surely wouldn't have put himself in the position Locke put him, i.e. crippled for life and unable to communicate, so I'd say he can't have been the real Cooper. And maybe the reason why Helen wasn't with Locke at the end was because she wasn't the real Helen either, but an illusion he'd created for himself. So, once you start taking it there, then who is real? *loves and curses show for messing wit our heads like that*
Incidentally - I peeked at your Lost recs (without reading anything, so far, because I wanted a blank slate for writing this) and found one recent post, being this one. Are there any others I missed? Or, if not, have you read any other fics since then you can recommend? For one, I'm sure other people have written the Ben-letting-go-storyline as well, and I'm curious as to whom and how, but so far I haven't found any. And I'm a little reluctant to start digging into AO3 or FF.Net without a map. Seems like crack_van has some Lost recs, but they seem to be mostly shippy and not that recent, either.
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Date: 2010-11-07 09:25 am (UTC)Not overselling it was definitely the hardest part in writing this (otoh, getting into sideways!Ben's head went unexpectedly more smoothly than I'd thought) and I must have re-written those last few paragraphs about a dozen times before I was more or less satisfied. At some point, I did have versions with either of both of them saying "I love you", before I threw that out altogether along with most of the rest of the dialogue. :) So chiming in when it comes to the strength of understatement.
Existential reflection: this one came from my own pondering that it's hardly possible for all of the people in the sideways world that we were shown to be both constructs in someone else's afterlife, and be in the process of crafting their own. Anthony Cooper, for one, surely wouldn't have put himself in the position Locke put him, i.e. crippled for life and unable to communicate, so I'd say he can't have been the real Cooper. And maybe the reason why Helen wasn't with Locke at the end was because she wasn't the real Helen either, but an illusion he'd created for himself. So, once you start taking it there, then who is real? *loves and curses show for messing wit our heads like that*
Incidentally - I peeked at your Lost recs (without reading anything, so far, because I wanted a blank slate for writing this) and found one recent post, being this one. Are there any others I missed? Or, if not, have you read any other fics since then you can recommend? For one, I'm sure other people have written the Ben-letting-go-storyline as well, and I'm curious as to whom and how, but so far I haven't found any. And I'm a little reluctant to start digging into AO3 or FF.Net without a map. Seems like