the sense of closure this brings to the episode is outstanding. i'm just so struck by how good b'elanna and jadzia are. i mean, b'elanna is good in the episode but the way you've created a perfect moment for her to release some of the torment that goodness caused with the exact right character exactly reproduced--amazing.
i love how b'elanna starts the fic so aware of her soft spots and vulnerability, how she seems to frame her exposure of person as a failure compared to the enigmatic and mysterious dax (Now she’ll probably have to make some small talk, and with a fully-uniformed Dax nonetheless. and Dax still gives her the impression of someone who is able to guess B’Elanna’s innermost thoughts, and it’s unsettling at the best of times.). yet it's a scene like this where, because of who she is and her exposure and her honesty, that she is set up to see dax's soft spots, dax's anger, dax's fears, the things she doesn't expose to anyone. the theme started in the episode and picked up so beautifully in this fic of being beholden to what's true and the complex relationship memories have--it just makes sense in this quiet midnight talk you've created.
and i just love so so much that you've almost gifted b'elanna the chance to know jadzia's perspective and to feel and hear jadzia's respect for the way b'elanna handled the burden of another's memories. it is so poignant and tender, the way they talk to each other, and the way they reach out, and the way b'elanna slowly erodes at her anxieties about herself through her anxieties about jadzia and finally arrives at a place of rest. and you did it so elegantly. the dialogue makes the conclusion and the feeling of release at the end so inevitable. i love this fic and these two so much!!
Even more worrying, she doesn’t crack any unfunny jokes. b'elanna pays Attention
She appears—strangely aloof, her face not betraying anything, the faint starlight reflecting in her eyes the only suggestion that time is still moving around her. this imagery is lovely and stunning i can only say thank you
B’Elanna exhales. She places her right on the tabletop, then curls it into a fist. “So now what. Should I just—wait until it passes? Until I forget? Until I am just like any other Enaran, pretending it didn’t happen?” It comes out more angry than B’Elanna expected, and Dax looks back at her with raised eyebrows. Yes, she is angry. god she has such a big loving heart and even if you didn't write jadzia's internal reaction to this i can still feel it
And ultimately Initiates, and joined Trills, are just a part of the same apparatus that claims to protect and care for the symbionts and their memories, but that in reality only fosters silence. Had to look out a window at this. I mean you tied this into the episode so well I could Scream. "only fosters silence" compared to b'elanna's unapologetic testifying!! the idea that experience and sensation and knowledge can't be kept from people--the idea that people can't be kept from people--the idea that memories are more than just flashes of the past but supremely significant and constitutive of a collective truth--and that should be spoken in some way. ahh!
The way they always seemed so impossibly distant to B’Elanna, both so much larger than life, both carrying the weight of their responsibilities with grace and levity the glimpse of how b'elanna feels about janeway makes me very emotional
Dax has big hands, tall as she is, and she easily envelops B’Elanna’s in a cool but not unpleasant hold. B’Elanna is reminded of their discussions about body temperatures, back during their shuttle accident. How Trills are more tolerant of the cold than the average Klingon, but joined Trills still cannot afford to go under a certain threshold. Are the memories from her symbiont similar for Dax? She can withstand more than most perhaps, but there probably are things that would still break her. B’Elanna hopes to never find out what they are. b'elanna is so good and this paragraph nearly made me cry
B’Elanna feels herself giving in to the promise of closeness as if she were collapsing, and finding a soft landing to catch her. “I hope you’re right,” she murmurs, her eyes on their joined hands. putting concept of rest, softness, and companionship with the word "joined"--am i reading too much into this to think you're commenting on a better framework for what joining means in the trill world. because that's what it feels like. jadzia and b'elanna writing over the stringent culture of trill symbiosis selection in a tiny tiny way.
THANK YOU AGAIN SO MUCH I'm really really happy you liked this little coda to "Remember". It means so much to hear that you found it an effective closure to the episode, I couldn't stop thinking about it feeling very much like a Trill plot. I felt like I could have B'Elanna and Jadzia talk it out, and perhaps bring something out in each other that neither would've acknowledged out loud otherwise. I'm also super glad you liked B'Elanna's initial wariness which cannot last because she *has* to speak out, like you said shes too honest not to. And what you said about B'Elanna being able to see Jadzia's own anxieties and anger and therefore be able to reach a place of rest rings very true to my objective in writing this fic. And I definitely wanted to give an alternative reading of the word "joining" there so I'm super glad you noticed :~)
Again super stoked to hear that you liked this!! Thank you so so much, and I definitely don't rule out writing more about Jadzia and B'Elanna—I've always been attached to this scenario where they were able to meet and strike a connection. I think they're great together!!
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leohtttbriar Sat 10 Aug 2024 01:11AM UTC
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trillscienceofficer (girlonthelasttrain) Sat 10 Aug 2024 03:03PM UTC
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