On Tue, 23 Oct 2001 05:59:50 +0000 "Sally Manton" smanton@hotmail.com writes:

:-) Love the idea of Avon as counsellor ... just two queries: [a] given what Our Heroes are put through canonically, for quite a few of them (Soolin, for instance) it would have to be VERY VERY awful to be more traumatic than usual, and [b] given that this is Avon we are talking about, for most of his less-than-beloved crewmates he possibly wouldn't actually *notice* till they started screaming at him from a distance of 5 inches or less :-) He's just not interested enough to actually *see* they're in trouble ...

The idea I'd toyed with was something along the lines of "What's the worse thing that _could_ have happened to such and such character in such and such episode . . . ?" Anyhow, I came up with a comprehensive list of worse case scenarios for Cally surviving in Rescue and what's the worst Dorian could have done to her short of leaving her in the basement and how much guilt and angst could we put Avon through on account of it (the last was kind of interesting. Avon carried a huge guilt load for ages over Anna. From Countdown, I'd guessed he'd spent a lot of time imagining the worst that could have happened to her, while hoping he was wrong. I also suppose that one reason he keeps his distance from others [besides natural standoffishness] is to keep from ever being close enough to someone to be the cause of that [or, at any rate, care about it] again. Then, he finds out he was wrong, nothing had ever happened to Anna. He'd never had anything to feel guilty about [except RoD, but that's not the same as being _helpless_ while someone you care about suffers]. Then, all of his worst nightmares happen again/for the first time to Cally).

Anyhow, Cally's nightmares wound up having all 200 years of Dorian's cruelties to draw on (drawbacks of telepathy [well, he was planning on using her as the main link to pull in the others, ergo . . .]). She's not sleeping at all, when she can help it. There's a serious weight loss problem (which Cally, more than most, can't really afford). Plus, she's getting uncharacteristically jumpy and irritable. Even Avon would notice that.

<Dang, Avon's bratty little sister is a Mary Sue. Ah, well . . . .>

There are ways round it. Make her as plain as a pikestaff, or built like a Soviet tractor-factory queen, or a bimbette or the bimbettiest (though how she *could* be with Avonic genes I don't know) or be a compulsive chatterer with a voice like a dyspeptic cockatoo ... or Angela Anaconda, maybe?

Ah, well, there may be hope. She was a compulsive chatterer. Her red hair is an obviously artificial shade (she's competitive about attention). Actually, she was an AU sister, literally. I was working on a story where Avon got to meet his counterpart in the rose colored glasses Trek universe. The product of a stable (if sardonic) family, his half Vulcan double had quite the extended family, including the little sister (all of them seem to act like firstborns who think any others in the family are really neighbors Mom and Dad are showing excessive [and soon to end] tolerance for). The perky little sister did decide it was her mission to save Avon from himself (kind of literally, as it worked out).

Unfortunately, it ground down to a halt halfway through, at about the time all Avons present had attacked her, come to think of it.

Family, the ties that bind.

Ellynne ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.