rec + fic meta
All right. I've been talking about this fic on twitter all day, so you're all probably expecting this.
Nothing Can Happen More Beautiful by solsticezero - r - gwen + ianto, gen - TRIGGER WARNING: suicide/self-harm
This is a story that's hard to summarize. The majority of the action takes place before the story starts, and the action is secondary to the story. It's a story about how Ianto and Gwen deal with something that's happened off-camera because of a threat we don't even need explained. Something got in Gwen's head and forced her to attempt suicide. And that's where the story picks up.
Read it--it's dark and intense, but the ending is hopeful and it's beautiful in a horrible sort of way.
Then come back and read my bizarre thoughts on it.
***
Back? You commented to tell her how brilliant it was, right? Good. Let's get to work.
So, last night Solstice was talking on Twitter about this fic that she was shocked she had written. I was IMing her about something inane, probably Sarah Jane Smith's name with hearts around it, and she asked if I could beta it and... if I recall, her exact words were "act as a litmus test" to make sure the story was sensitive to the subject matter.
Now, people write shitty stories about suicide all the time, to the point where I think it's hilarious. krabapple, inocciduous, and I used to sit around reading shitty "John Sheppard cuts himself" stories for fun. I didn't, of course, expect Solstice's story to be shitty, because I think she's incapable of that, but I understood her hesitance. People in fandom are, I think, more sensitive to things like this on the whole than the rest of the world. I don't mean that as a bad thing, just as a fact.
I warned her that I am pretty laid back. When it comes to things like this, I tend to be a "live and let live" sort of person, which I know isn't always good. But I promised I'd do my best and skimmed her story while I was doing two other things.
I haven't been able to get it out of my head since.
The story, for those who clicked this out of curiosity without knowing the fandom or reading the fic, has Gwen being controlled by an alien that forces her to attempt suicide. The team is able to get to her in time, but the story focuses on Ianto, who is left to clean up the mess with the knowledge that, if they were two minutes later, he would have been cleaning up her body. As he performs each task, he thinks of how the tasks would be different if it was a corpse he was collecting, unable to shake how close he came, even when he has Gwen in his arms. He doesn't talk down to her, he doesn't condescend, he doesn't spout platitudes, he's just deeply and profoundly terrified of what almost happened to someone he loves.
It's an angle that I don't think is frequently explored in literature about suicide, and it was done wonderfully, but it's only one of the reasons I loved this story.
The entire thing works on an almost metaphorical level. Yes, it's an outside consciousness forcing Gwen to hurt herself, but that's... almost what having thoughts like that can feel like. The team saves her, but it's not clean and neat and it's not all right. Even though this wasn't an act consciously perpetrated by Gwen, they're all silent and awkward and they leave quickly to chase after bad guys, to aim their efforts at the thing they think will help. Ianto and Gwen are left to deal with their emotions. Gwen wonders what Rhys would have thought if he found her. Ianto knows that Rhys would have found her too late.
And--and I think this was vitally important to the story, so much that I made a note in allcaps saying so--Gwen apologizes. It's not her fault. But she feels guilty for hurting them and guilty for what she's done, even though she had no control over it. Ianto knows it's not her fault, but he also doesn't stop her. Because he almost lost her and he loves her so much and he still can't wrap his head around how fragile she is and how he almost had to continue his life without her. They cry and they hold each other and it's messy and there's no resolution, except that they still have each other and that has to be enough.
I haven't talked to Solstice about most of these thoughts (aside from telling her that it was VITAL that Gwen's apology stay in), so I don't know how intentional the metaphor was in the narrative. But it's just... it's horrible and beautiful. I've been on both sides of that couch, albeit in a looser sense, and it hurts both ways, but it's not simple and there's no one to blame.
I'm going through some stuff right now. I'm not suicidal by a long shot, but when you have a history, sometimes your thoughts turn that way as idle speculation. At least mine do, but I've always been a bit morbid. Again, I will make this clear I AM NOT CURRENTLY SUICIDAL. But I feel like this story speaks to me on a number of levels. The helplessness and the accepting that sometimes even when there's an "easy fix," things aren't magically better. The need for connection to at least one person, because while the team have Gwen's best intentions in mind as they run off to save the say, they still leave her behind when she's really in need of company and comfort. There's a lot of it that I'm... not quite relating to, but rather, appreciating, I guess.
I don't know. I think there was more I wanted to say. I've literally been thinking about this story almost non-stop since I first skimmed it last night. I think it's some of Solstice's best work, and I know she was nervous about it, but I hope she (and you) realize how beautiful it is.
***
eta: Also, this is unrelated to every other part of this post, but whenever I beta a story, I obsessively refresh to see who's reading and how many comments it has, possibly more than I do with my own. I get so PROUD even though I have very little to do with it, in the long run, because the people I beta for are fucking rockstars who are awesome writers before I come anywhere near them.
Nothing Can Happen More Beautiful by solsticezero - r - gwen + ianto, gen - TRIGGER WARNING: suicide/self-harm
This is a story that's hard to summarize. The majority of the action takes place before the story starts, and the action is secondary to the story. It's a story about how Ianto and Gwen deal with something that's happened off-camera because of a threat we don't even need explained. Something got in Gwen's head and forced her to attempt suicide. And that's where the story picks up.
Read it--it's dark and intense, but the ending is hopeful and it's beautiful in a horrible sort of way.
Then come back and read my bizarre thoughts on it.
***
Back? You commented to tell her how brilliant it was, right? Good. Let's get to work.
So, last night Solstice was talking on Twitter about this fic that she was shocked she had written. I was IMing her about something inane, probably Sarah Jane Smith's name with hearts around it, and she asked if I could beta it and... if I recall, her exact words were "act as a litmus test" to make sure the story was sensitive to the subject matter.
Now, people write shitty stories about suicide all the time, to the point where I think it's hilarious. krabapple, inocciduous, and I used to sit around reading shitty "John Sheppard cuts himself" stories for fun. I didn't, of course, expect Solstice's story to be shitty, because I think she's incapable of that, but I understood her hesitance. People in fandom are, I think, more sensitive to things like this on the whole than the rest of the world. I don't mean that as a bad thing, just as a fact.
I warned her that I am pretty laid back. When it comes to things like this, I tend to be a "live and let live" sort of person, which I know isn't always good. But I promised I'd do my best and skimmed her story while I was doing two other things.
I haven't been able to get it out of my head since.
The story, for those who clicked this out of curiosity without knowing the fandom or reading the fic, has Gwen being controlled by an alien that forces her to attempt suicide. The team is able to get to her in time, but the story focuses on Ianto, who is left to clean up the mess with the knowledge that, if they were two minutes later, he would have been cleaning up her body. As he performs each task, he thinks of how the tasks would be different if it was a corpse he was collecting, unable to shake how close he came, even when he has Gwen in his arms. He doesn't talk down to her, he doesn't condescend, he doesn't spout platitudes, he's just deeply and profoundly terrified of what almost happened to someone he loves.
It's an angle that I don't think is frequently explored in literature about suicide, and it was done wonderfully, but it's only one of the reasons I loved this story.
The entire thing works on an almost metaphorical level. Yes, it's an outside consciousness forcing Gwen to hurt herself, but that's... almost what having thoughts like that can feel like. The team saves her, but it's not clean and neat and it's not all right. Even though this wasn't an act consciously perpetrated by Gwen, they're all silent and awkward and they leave quickly to chase after bad guys, to aim their efforts at the thing they think will help. Ianto and Gwen are left to deal with their emotions. Gwen wonders what Rhys would have thought if he found her. Ianto knows that Rhys would have found her too late.
And--and I think this was vitally important to the story, so much that I made a note in allcaps saying so--Gwen apologizes. It's not her fault. But she feels guilty for hurting them and guilty for what she's done, even though she had no control over it. Ianto knows it's not her fault, but he also doesn't stop her. Because he almost lost her and he loves her so much and he still can't wrap his head around how fragile she is and how he almost had to continue his life without her. They cry and they hold each other and it's messy and there's no resolution, except that they still have each other and that has to be enough.
I haven't talked to Solstice about most of these thoughts (aside from telling her that it was VITAL that Gwen's apology stay in), so I don't know how intentional the metaphor was in the narrative. But it's just... it's horrible and beautiful. I've been on both sides of that couch, albeit in a looser sense, and it hurts both ways, but it's not simple and there's no one to blame.
I'm going through some stuff right now. I'm not suicidal by a long shot, but when you have a history, sometimes your thoughts turn that way as idle speculation. At least mine do, but I've always been a bit morbid. Again, I will make this clear I AM NOT CURRENTLY SUICIDAL. But I feel like this story speaks to me on a number of levels. The helplessness and the accepting that sometimes even when there's an "easy fix," things aren't magically better. The need for connection to at least one person, because while the team have Gwen's best intentions in mind as they run off to save the say, they still leave her behind when she's really in need of company and comfort. There's a lot of it that I'm... not quite relating to, but rather, appreciating, I guess.
I don't know. I think there was more I wanted to say. I've literally been thinking about this story almost non-stop since I first skimmed it last night. I think it's some of Solstice's best work, and I know she was nervous about it, but I hope she (and you) realize how beautiful it is.
***
eta: Also, this is unrelated to every other part of this post, but whenever I beta a story, I obsessively refresh to see who's reading and how many comments it has, possibly more than I do with my own. I get so PROUD even though I have very little to do with it, in the long run, because the people I beta for are fucking rockstars who are awesome writers before I come anywhere near them.