Rambling about Fraser makes ANY DAY better!

[schmerica]

Sometimes it seems like people like to write Fraser as very ... cut off from the world, I guess. It's something that I don't quite understand fully. In some ways, Fraser is a very inward person, yes; I don't think a lot of people get to know him very well, and I don't think he has a lot of close friends. But on the other, he's also the person who knows every single person he's ever come across -- his neighbours, his coworkers, people around town -- and remembers their names and their kids' names and their jobs and any random information about them at all. Even in Chicago, he's purposely friendly: he makes an effort at community.

(There are post-CotW stories I have read that posit Fraser as inward and antisocial, and have Ray Kowalski pulling him out of his shell to interact with the people there. This blows my mind.)

I have a different favorite thing about Fraser everyday, just about, but today, I'm stuck thinking about his affinity for certain types of people. This is different from just the friendliness and neighborliness I was talking about above, because there are some people that he seems to have an instant connection with. The lost; the confused; the vulnerable. Teenage girls seem to fit into this category often -- Eloise from "Say Amen", Melissa from "Some Like It Red", Andy from "The Promise." You can see it with Bruce in "I Coulda Been a Defendent"; the scene where Fraser's in the interrogation room with his head on his hands makes me ache inside.

I think some of the strongest parts of the Fraser-Kowalski partnership probably come from Fraser seeing this in RayK, too. You can see bits of it as early as "Eclipse", but it really begins to blossom in "Strange Bedfellows." A couple more hints in "Mountie and Soul", "Asylum", "Easy Money", but it's really in "The Ladies' Man" that it comes to a climax.

And, really, Fraser's vision of Victoria is sort of the ultimate expression of this part of his character. Every time he talks about her, it's just pointing directly to this. Lost, confused, vulnerable: Fraser's a sucker for it everytime, he wants to help. Because, well. Fraser knows what it's like.

Comments

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

You know, I actually find most of my writing really gets done that way, too, on the fly -- the way I end up doing the characterization is just the way that feels right at the time, you know? So posts like this are kind of me trying to work backwards and see if there are any sorts of patterns to what I latch onto, and what works for me in general, I guess.

Actually, Kowalski, compared to the two of them, probably has the least connection to community.

I totally agree! The only exception to the rule I can really think of is Mountie & Soul, where he's making the connections himself.

(You know, if Fraser has the affinity for these lost teenage girls, Ray kind of has one for teenage boys, or at least the lower class ones who act like idiots a lot of the time. Mountie & Soul, Davy from Say Amen, Stanley Smith from Dead Man Running. That might be interesting to explore more in fic. Hmm.)

[mondschein1.livejournal.com]

That might be interesting to play with in KIDfic, actually -- give Fraser and Ray a boy and a girl, and Ray gets fed up with the girl sometimes and passes her off to Fraser, and vice versa.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

See, I just think Ray wouldn't get the girls -- but a stupid teenage boy? He can TOTALLY identify with.

[mondschein1.livejournal.com]

No, he WOULDN'T get the girls. Like, girl would come home and be like, "OMG DADDY MY BOYFRIEND DUMPED ME." Maybe. And Ray'd just be like, "Wow, that jerk! I'd go beat him up, but that wouldn't be fair." And then girl would be like, "DADDY YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT YOU ARE THE WORST DADDY EVER." And then Ray would be sad and annoyed and stomp off to go get Fraser and snark off at him about being good at everything, and then Fraser would have a long talk with girl involving lots of tissues and brownies. And then he would go be nice to Ray. Because he is Fraser! And -- he is Fraser!