On finishing "Written by the Victors": When fic gets you in the gut
I've just spent the last, oh, half an hour or so, sobbing. First in my desk chair and then in the bathroom until it tapered off. Why? Because I finally settled in to read cesperanza's amazing Written by the Victors*, and about two hours after finishing, in the middle of listening to fleurrochard chant one of aesc's apocryphal texts, I just broke down. The hell of it was, I'd waited until now to read the damn thing (and listen, I'm talking like Sheppard now) because I knew it would be a sock in the gut, between what I'd heard about the content and the expectation that it would throw me into despair about my own potential as a writer, and I needed to be in an emotionally stable place before diving in. Well, hell.
Something about Fleur's calm, ritualistic cantillation really made it hit home, how "Victors" telescoped outwards at the end, how the characters we love have gone through this incredible experience and grown into beloved legends with time, touching an entire galaxy populated by cultures we don't know, in languages we can't read (though the final passages' meaning is clear enough). It was the scope of the story that did it, I think, or more specifically the epilogue, going beyond the extension of canon that comprised the story itself and into the vastness of the Pegasus galaxy through space and time, the rippling outwards, the echoes into future generations, the mutations of re-telling upon re-telling.
Also, it was the way John and Rodney and Teyla and Ronon and Zelenka and everyone who stayed on Atlantis have an effect, the way their story lasts through time, the love and devotion and loyalty they share with each other, how they stand strong against their enemies, how they're profoundly changed by their experiences in Pegasus that John tried to capture in his Declaration of Sovereignty, their willingness to sacrifice themselves, their desire to make a difference and do what's right.
But mostly it was the scope of things-I wish I knew how to phrase it better-how it made me aware of how small they are-and how small I am-in the grand scheme of the universe and history. Probably because it's not science fiction with the same potential to branch out, I haven't read a story in House fandom that's had such a profound impact in quite this way for quite the same reasons. The only other story I could think of that left me similarly wrecked was synecdochic's Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose, which plenty of people have alluded to in their comments to "Victors"-and I don't think it's a coincidence that those are the two SGA stories I've saved to my hard drive-, which also broadened canon through time and geography, and focused on the team's love for one another and their love of Atlantis and Pegasus, and showed how Rodney had been profoundly changed and matured by his experience there, and him wanting to make it mean something to future generations, wanting to help, wanting to change things, make a difference, be remembered. Have Teyla and Ronon and John be remembered.
And that's at the crux of it, I think, the attention to time and memory in "Victors" and "Freedom." When a story leaves me that devastated, there's got to be something personally resonant mixed in with what happened in the narrative itself. I think it was an egocentric, a deeply personal, fear-a trauma-a sudden-again helpless recognition that I won't live on in history like these characters have; that I haven't left, and possibly, even likely, won't leave, something behind that's worth remembering, let alone that will become legend, that will change the world, two worlds, an entire galaxy, two galaxies. That I so desperately want to do so, especially if immortality itself is unattainable, and so the endings of these stories, while joyous in the sense that these characters knew true and abiding love (romantic and platonic/fraternal) in their lifetimes and have emerged triumphant despite casualties and have altered the course of history in ways both grand (defeating the enemy) and deceptively simple (teaching), leave me confronting the limits of my own mortality and importance, and grieving.
Which isn't quite the basis for a good cry that I'd expected.
* * *
I don't know. Enough about me (unless it's not just me?). What are some of the things that tend to make you ache, other than character death, in fanfic?
*Which, yes, is an SGA story and best appreciated as such, but it's also about history and academia and politics, love and loyalty, standing up for what one believes in against daunting odds, ordinary people and extraordinary heroism, culture and language, myth and legend, fans' relations to canon and canon's relations to fanfic and fans' relations to fanfic and fanfic's relations to other fanfic, and a dozen other things, all in 55,000 words. People: There's a constructed bibliography.
Something about Fleur's calm, ritualistic cantillation really made it hit home, how "Victors" telescoped outwards at the end, how the characters we love have gone through this incredible experience and grown into beloved legends with time, touching an entire galaxy populated by cultures we don't know, in languages we can't read (though the final passages' meaning is clear enough). It was the scope of the story that did it, I think, or more specifically the epilogue, going beyond the extension of canon that comprised the story itself and into the vastness of the Pegasus galaxy through space and time, the rippling outwards, the echoes into future generations, the mutations of re-telling upon re-telling.
Also, it was the way John and Rodney and Teyla and Ronon and Zelenka and everyone who stayed on Atlantis have an effect, the way their story lasts through time, the love and devotion and loyalty they share with each other, how they stand strong against their enemies, how they're profoundly changed by their experiences in Pegasus that John tried to capture in his Declaration of Sovereignty, their willingness to sacrifice themselves, their desire to make a difference and do what's right.
But mostly it was the scope of things-I wish I knew how to phrase it better-how it made me aware of how small they are-and how small I am-in the grand scheme of the universe and history. Probably because it's not science fiction with the same potential to branch out, I haven't read a story in House fandom that's had such a profound impact in quite this way for quite the same reasons. The only other story I could think of that left me similarly wrecked was synecdochic's Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose, which plenty of people have alluded to in their comments to "Victors"-and I don't think it's a coincidence that those are the two SGA stories I've saved to my hard drive-, which also broadened canon through time and geography, and focused on the team's love for one another and their love of Atlantis and Pegasus, and showed how Rodney had been profoundly changed and matured by his experience there, and him wanting to make it mean something to future generations, wanting to help, wanting to change things, make a difference, be remembered. Have Teyla and Ronon and John be remembered.
And that's at the crux of it, I think, the attention to time and memory in "Victors" and "Freedom." When a story leaves me that devastated, there's got to be something personally resonant mixed in with what happened in the narrative itself. I think it was an egocentric, a deeply personal, fear-a trauma-a sudden-again helpless recognition that I won't live on in history like these characters have; that I haven't left, and possibly, even likely, won't leave, something behind that's worth remembering, let alone that will become legend, that will change the world, two worlds, an entire galaxy, two galaxies. That I so desperately want to do so, especially if immortality itself is unattainable, and so the endings of these stories, while joyous in the sense that these characters knew true and abiding love (romantic and platonic/fraternal) in their lifetimes and have emerged triumphant despite casualties and have altered the course of history in ways both grand (defeating the enemy) and deceptively simple (teaching), leave me confronting the limits of my own mortality and importance, and grieving.
Which isn't quite the basis for a good cry that I'd expected.
* * *
I don't know. Enough about me (unless it's not just me?). What are some of the things that tend to make you ache, other than character death, in fanfic?
*Which, yes, is an SGA story and best appreciated as such, but it's also about history and academia and politics, love and loyalty, standing up for what one believes in against daunting odds, ordinary people and extraordinary heroism, culture and language, myth and legend, fans' relations to canon and canon's relations to fanfic and fans' relations to fanfic and fanfic's relations to other fanfic, and a dozen other things, all in 55,000 words. People: There's a constructed bibliography.