Fans of Peter's Room

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I'm just about to write a post-canon Merricks' Twelfth Night party (2 years on from that in Peter's Room.), and I'm making some POV decisions. From whose viewpoint would you like to see the party, and why? Peter's been packed off to Selby's for the Christmas hols, sorry, I had to limit the cast a bit. The only definite decision so far is a staff POV (probably Mrs Bertie 'helping out', as she's much better characterised than Nellie). I can't promise everything will make it into the finished fic, but I'll try and write a ficbit for everything suggested.

Comments

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Mrs Marlow, Ann, Patrick.
Struggling to come up with better reasons than "just because" - I think because Nicola, Lawrie and Ginty's motivations and thoughts are more obvious and explored in the series. Ditto Kay and to a lesser extent Rowan. And suspect there might have been a big rift or at least awkwardness between Ann and others after the Run Away Home finale hoo-ha.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestions! I have Mrs Marlow being brisk at some of Giles's unspeakable opinions around mid-way through, so I would like to pick that up in this finale.

I've wondered whether to put Ann in the fic at all (she has a couple of inessential lines of dialogue in one scene I've already written) my suspicion is that after the events of RAH she distances herself from her loony family; at this stage she's not quite old enough to do that completely, admittedly, but I do wonder if she might be spending a lot of time visiting friends during holidays too--after all, she's canonically popular at school, and presumably has plenty of options in that direction.

There will certainly be Patrick, because Patrick POV is a thing of beauty and a boy forever, as the man said.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Now I'm having a vision of Ann calmly cutting off her family as she did her guide badges. She's as ruthless as the rest of them, her sisters just don't see it because it isn't over the same things.

Hmm. Now I'm thinking about it, I think Mrs Marlowe is wrong about imagining adult Ann not having an easy life because she's sacrificing herself nursing, and instead seeing her as leading campaigns for reasonable working hours because you can only nurse effectively if you have preserved your own health first.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

THIS. That's really similar to my Ann headcanon (which does make it into one of my other fics, albeit just as a throwaway line). If anything, the daughter with the dangerous aptitude for self-immolation is Rowan, and to be fair, Forest does a good job of suggesting the resentment and unpleasantness that in real life often accompanies even willing self-sacrifice; and Rowan's is not particularly willing.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

In a family brought up in the traditions of the Service, self-immolation in the call of duty is what you are supposed to do. Karen is at it as well (in my head canon she is using Edwin and his poor motherless children as a safe excuse to run away from Oxford), not to mention poor Peter at Dartmouth, though at 13 he doesn't have much choice.

I do wonder how Rowan rationalises the bit where Giles, or their father, is going to come back and run the lot at some point. Does she see it only as a short-term stop-gap sacrifice? Though at the time, she doesn't see it as a sacrifice, she sees it as a practical solution all round and thinks she can cope with it because she is used to coping.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

In some ways Ann might be among the less self-sacrificial of them! Ginty and Lawrie seem to a large extent to have escaped the indoctrination into duty.

Yes, if she's waiting for her father to retire, she's got a good few years still to go--Geoff is said to be 48 in RMF, isn't he--and wouldn't his earliest opportunity to retire be 55 (I'm going here on my own family background, RAF not RN, but probably similar?) I mean, it's not a life-sentence, but it's quite a stretch when you're 17. I can't see Giles chucking the Service, though I entertain fantasies of his dismissal if the events of RAH ever come to light. I think Forest actually does her decision really well: she doesn't quite perceive the level of self-denial involved, partly because of the pathological coping mechanism, but also because of her youth: it's a moment where we see Rowan as youthfully impractical (how bad can it be? kind of thing); important because she so often seems mature beyond her years.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

My own family background is a farm. I remember my little sister worrying who was going to take it over "because one of us has got to" when she was about nine, and ours has only been in the family since 1920 rather than before Alfred.

Rowan is more confident and competent than Karen and Karen resents Rowan being better at dealing with fusses than she is but Rowan isn't academic and taking over the farm and leaving school is a way of not having to compete with Karen on that score. After which it must be particularly infuriating to have Karen chuck Oxford and turn up doing her own self-sacrificing step-mother bit on the doorstep.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I can see Ann pushing off to a friend's, but still being Good Sister and sending letters regularly, and Nicola reading excerpts wondering if Ann actually intended to sound that snippy...

Patrick - yes!
If done Right.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll see how it goes with Ann--she might become indispensable, or disappear; in any case, I'll try to write a ficbit for you! I have committed Patrick POV in the past (http://archiveofourown.org/series/43245); I have no idea whether I've got it Right or not, but I had fun. For the value of 'fun' that is 'Patrick making himself miserable'.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Here's a little Patrick / Nicola exchange, if not quite Patrick POV--he plays less of a role in the Twelfth Night party than I'd thought.


‘My dear Nicola!’ Patrick somehow gave it the inflection of Hornblower, and she giggled.

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘Why? Are you going to have me lashed to the grating and flogged?’

‘Not before we’ve had this dance, I hope—’

‘Nicola Marlow, did you just ask me to—’

‘Certainly did. I’m not afraid of a k/b, you see, unlike some folk I could mention.’

‘You hussy. I thought you’d never.’

They were revolving slowly in waltz time, Nicola half-listening to Patrick’s acerbic commentary on the night—it was being a rather smashing party, actually, and there was still half an hour to go before Sir Roger—when she heard arrythmic steps behind her and felt a tap on her shoulder.