#I find it fascinating that Lister and Rimmer appear on the surface as a character who is kind and sweet and caring and a character whi

[odo-apologist]

In Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, Lister smuggled Frankenstein on board to purposefully get caught and put into stasis. And I don't know, I have mixed feelings about this

Initially, I didn't care for the idea at all. I felt it clashed too much with Lister's traits of kindness and sentimentality. In the pilot episode, Lister taking care of Frankenstein is the first indication the audience gets of that aspect of his character. He's disorderly and he's kind of a slob- and he also has heart. He sees a poor, helpless creature and takes her in- despite the consequences. It shows the audience how caring Lister can be. Learning that this action isn't genuine tarnishes what I felt it was supposed to demonstrate in the show

But it has kind of grown on me. First, of course, is that it presents another characteristic of Lister that should be emphasized more: his cunning. Yes, he has heart, but The Inquisutor is right in pointing out that Lister also has brains. Sure, some jokes at Lister's expense are aimed at his lack of using them, but that type of joke is levied against pretty much all of the main characters; they are less knowledgeable, experienced, and successful than the competent crews of other sci-fi media. But still, Lister is intelligent (he repairs Kryten twice), but it's subtle, less apparent than his other traits which are more foregrounded in his personality (those repairs happen mainly offscreen). A reason why the revelation of his true intentions behind keeping Frankenstein is both surprising and also, retrospectively, still feels in character

Another is due to a different trait that sometimes goes unnoticed: Lister's actual aloofness. In spite of his friendliness, his ease around people, Lister does have issues committing and forming actual deep bonds with others. He's more willing to keep people at arm's length, even if his attitude would suggest otherwise. Lister convincing everyone that he brought an unquarantined animal aboard out of pure sentimentality and let the secret slip through a careless mistake when he had, in fact, fully planned his actions to get put in stasis from the start highlights that dichotomy in a really interesting way

I'd be curious to hear what others think about this!

[rimmers-swimming-certificate]

"I can explain." for the dialogue prompts

(Dialogue Prompts)

Lister walked into the sleeping quarters he shared with Rimmer, and paused in the doorway. Rimmer was staring intently into the mirror. He turned to one side and then the other, as though examining his looks. One hand raked through his hair, and he shook his head.

“How did he do it, Holly?” he asked. “We’re the same person, we have the same face, so how is he so much better looking than me? Plastic surgery? No, I’d have noticed.” He touched his hand to the large reflective letter ‘H’ in the middle of his forehead and scowled. “This doesn’t help, but I can’t do anything about that. Holly, can you do something about my hair?”

Holly, on the viewscreen to his left, gave him an amused look. “Probably not,” she said. “I think it’s beyond help.”

Rimmer glared at her and sighed deeply. “Holly, you were perfectly capable of giving me a variety of silly hairdos for your own amusement once, so I’m sure you’ll have no trouble doing something I actually want you to do.”

“I dunno, I might do,” Holly told him. “I mean, that was funny. This is just a bit sad, innit?”

Rimmer scowled at the screen where she appeared. “Just do it,” he said. “Make me look… like him.”

Holly frowned. “Who?” she asked.

“Who? Who do you think? Mr smegging wonderful ‘Ace’ Rimmer, smarmy goit extraordinaire.”

Holly continued to frown at him through the monitor. “Why?” she asked.

“Because…” Rimmer shook his head. “Never mind. Forget it.”

“Nah, I’ll do it if you really want,” Holly said. “I mean, I can do the hair anyway. Your clothes too if you fancy. Can’t do much about the rest though.”

“The rest? What ‘rest’? Have you figured out what the difference is? He’s had a nose job, hasn’t he? I knew it.”

“No, ‘course he hasn’t,” Holly assured him. “It’s just, you know, your general…” she allowed her words to trail off, “Never mind. Here you go.”

Rimmer watched himself in the mirror, waiting for his reflection to change. It remained exactly the same, but in his hand a blonde wig appeared. He stared at it for a moment, then up at Holly again. “You’re not serious,” he said.

Holly didn’t reply. Instead, she disappeared from the viewscreen, leaving him alone in the sleeping quarters.

Rimmer sighed to himself. As Lister watched, he turned the wig around in his hands, ran his fingers through the hair, then carefully placed it on his head. He took a moment to move it around, making sure none of his own hair was visible at the edges, then checked the result in the mirror.

He didn’t look like Ace. He looked like Rimmer, in an Ace Rimmer wig. Still staring in fascination at himself in the mirror, Rimmer combed his fingers through the wig’s fringe, pulling it down to partly obscure his ‘H’. He cleared his throat. “Hey there,” he said, affecting Ace’s accent which, now Lister thought about it, had to be fake. “I’m an insufferably smug git,” he said. He flicked his hair off of his face, dislodging the wig slightly, and had to push it back into the right position.

It occurred to Lister that standing there watching wasn’t fair. He needed to either sneak away and have a giggle about this to himself, or speak up and let Rimmer know that he wasn’t alone. He cleared his throat. “Having fun?”

Rimmer froze. It took him a moment to recover, then he turned slowly to the door. “Er… Listy,” he said. “How long have you been standing there?”

Lister shrugged. “Long enough to hear you admit that you’re a smug git,” he said.

“Okay, look. I can explain…” Rimmer said, and then didn’t explain. Instead, he went silent for a very long time, and then shook his head. “Actually, no. I can’t. Please don’t tell anybody.”

Lister moved his finger across his lips in a zipping motion. “It’s not about the hair though, you know.” he said. “It’s everything else.”

Rimmer frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, how he acts. The way he stands, how he walks, his confidence. The way he actually goes out of his way to be nice while you go out of your way to be a smeghead. The fact that he smiles sometimes.”

Rimmer scowled. “It’s all an act, you know.”

Lister shook his head. He liked to think of himself as a pretty good judge of character, and there had seemed to be absolutely nothing false about Ace. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“Yes, well that’s because you were taken in by him, isn’t it?” Rimmer said. “You’re too easily fooled. Trust me, he had some ulterior motive. He might have gotten all the breaks in life, but he’s still me after all.”

“He didn’t get the breaks,” Lister reminded him. “He was the one held back a year, remember?”

“One little setback which then led to him getting all the breaks that I missed out on,” Rimmer said.

Lister shrugged, “Go on then, what do you think he was up to?”

“How am I supposed to know? But he was. You see Lister, at least with me, you know what you’re getting. I don’t go around pretending to be somebody I’m not.”

Lister raised an eyebrow, and Rimmer, realising, snatched the wig from his head and stashed it behind his back. “That doesn’t count,” he said.

“No?”

“No. I wasn’t pretending to be him. I can’t imagine anything worse than being him, to be honest. I was just trying to figure out how he does it.”

Lister walked further into the room, climbed onto the top bunk and sat with his legs dangling over the edge. “You were trying to figure out how he does what?”

“How he seems so… You know.” Rimmer rolled a hand in the air, as he tried to find the words. “Confident. Convincing. I just thought it might come in useful, is all.”

“Useful for what?” Lister asked, then shook his head. “Never mind, I’m not sure I want to know. It’s not about the hair, anyway. Or the accent. It’s… well, think about it. From the moment your lives diverged, he’s probably had other kids at school looking up to him, people telling him he’s doing great, all that stuff. As he grew up, people liked him, respected him. That kinda thing gives you confidence. I mean, maybe it is something you can fake for a couple of minutes, but the real, genuine thing?” he shook his head. “You’ve either got it or you haven’t, and no smegging wig’s going to do it for you.”

Rimmer sighed and tossed the ridiculous wig onto the bottom bunk, where it sat for a few seconds before disappearing. “Great. So it’s hopeless then,” he said. “You’re saying that just because I’ve had thirty years of being bogged down by my own failure, culminating in an act of negligence that resulted in the deaths of over a thousand people, you’re saying that just because of that, I’m never going to be happy?”

Lister shook his head. “I never said that. I said that people liked him, and that made him more confident, that’s all. Look, don’t be jealous of him, okay? I mean, he’s great, obviously, but you’re not that bad.”

Rimmer raised his eyebrows. “I’m ‘not that bad’? High praise indeed from a man that I once saw bite off his big toenail and use it as a guitar pick.”

“I couldn’t find my plectrum,” Lister told him. “It was one of those songs that just doesn’t sound right if you strum with your hand. Anyway, what’s that got to do with anything? And what’s hopeless? You said you didn’t want to be him.”

“I don’t,” Rimmer said. “He makes me sick. I can’t imagine anything worse.”

Lister rolled his eyes. “Well then, things are fine, aren’t they? Anyway, I wouldn’t want you to be more like him. You’re fine as you are.”

“I am?” Rimmer said dubiously.

“Yeah, ‘course you are. I’d be lost without you,” Lister said, realising as he said it, that it was only half a lie.

Rimmer glanced at his reflection in the mirror again. He stood up a little straighter and squared his shoulders. “Well, of course you would,” he said. “And can you imagine being trapped on a ship with him? Constantly preening and ‘smoke me a kipper-ing’ everywhere?”

Rimmer didn’t quite get it, building one person up didn’t have to mean tearing another down. Lister sighed. “No, Rimmer. It would’ve been nice,” he said. “But honestly, given a choice between the two of you, I’d pick you every time.”

“Oh.” Rimmer gave his reflection a curt nod, and when he stood a certain way, Lister could actually see some of Ace in him. It was hidden very, very deep below the surface, but it was there. “You’re right you know, Listy,” Rimmer said, and sat down on the bottom bunk. “You’re lucky to have me.”

Lister rolled his eyes, but Rimmer didn’t see it. He didn’t see Lister’s pleased-with-himself grin either. He was too busy feeling good about himself.