1 [Report This]Date: November 29, 2020 03:28 am Title: Chapter 4: Pam's Bunk
Great details here - the failure of the language plan and the success of the gesture control one, Stanley literally being able to play video games with his eyes closed. And I loved the reimaginings of the Booze Cruise and the Dundies.
Author's Response: Thank you! Reworking classic episodes into the new setting was hard but fun and I think worthwhile.
1 [Report This]Date: March 24, 2019 05:22 pm Title: Chapter 4: Pam's Bunk
There is so much history in this chapter and I love all of it. The pranks Jim and Pam used to play on Dwight, the fact that Katy was a quasi-celebrity, and that Roy played roller derby. It's these details that shape the story in a way, and moreso, the conflicted Pam we're seeing in this moment. I especially loved your take on Booze Cruise and how ridiculous the "I'm cold" statement would be here, but Jim still letting her slide until he couldn't anymore.
Who needs action, is what I'm saying -- when the internal is this good.
Author's Response: Thank you! I had a ton of fun recasting show moments into the AU, which is part of why they spend a lot of time reminiscing...
Date: March 12, 2019 12:14 pm Title: Chapter 4: Pam's Bunk
Lots of good internal thinking going on here. I liked how you keep bringing in elements from the show and it still doesn't seem out of place. The 27 seconds of silence and the Dundies making their sci-fi appearance.
The only thing I would say is that while it was all good internal thoughts, it was a lot of internal thoughts. Many of which are in similar vein to a lot of other stories. When Pam woke up and realized she was going to be late to get to command, where Jim was, I was kinda looking forward to that interaction. I'm sure it's coming. I think it's about knowing your audience. Most people who come around this corner of the internet are familiar with the basic JAM timeline and story. So while it's fun to bring in new twists like you did her with Whitest Spacesuit, in my opinion what makes an AU like this fun is seeing what new things will be brought to the table. Hopefully that makes sense.
Author's Response:
Thanks, warrior. I appreciate your thoughts. I'm deliberately treading a more internally-focused line here for two reasons: one as an excuse for worldbuilding, making clear how the JAM timeline and story map onto these elements, because there are a lot of differences (starting most obviously with frozen Roy), the other because I'm more interested in their internal thoughts than in the externalities I might choose to create. Now, obviously those internal thoughts are going to change as the story goes on, and in very AU ways because in the regular universe they don't keep interacting. But especially in an extreme AU, I'm personally much less interested in adding in a bunch of alternative action in than in seeing how the Jim and Pam we already know react.
Also, sorry to disappoint you here, but I think the key element of a story where Jim is still around in the Casino Night aftermath, regardless of universe, is that there isn't a lot of actual interaction between them: that Jim protects himself by withdrawing mentally if not physically, and that Pam isn't particularly aggressive about confronting him. So don't expect them to actually interact a lot in that initial moment in the next chapter either.
1 [Report This]Date: March 11, 2019 07:03 pm Title: Chapter 4: Pam's Bunk
Definitely not a lot of sci-fi here but I don’t think it’s weird at all (one of my favorite jam fics is a Dollhouse crossover) as long as the characterization and heart of jam are true then they can be written in almost any setting… you’ve shown that quite well with your stories here.
As for this one, very excited to read that jim will be stuck on board longer than I initially expected. Can’t wait for the awkward encounters to come... Maybe a forced job they’re forced to work on together or maybe some sort of emergency and they’re the only two there and they fix it together? I’ve enjoyed the look inside their heads these chapters but some action would be fun too.
Author's Response:
Yeah, given the general absence of genre fiction (aside from romance and mystery) in the fanfic on this board, I'm trying to give the SF background a soft landing; there will probably be more action, though still not a ton of action, in the upcoming segments. I'm still more interested in the JAM aspects of their continued proximity after Casino Night than in pure space opera, but there will be more of that upcoming.
Thanks for the review!