Fic: In the Hands of Yes

[hth]

In the Hands of Yes
by Hth

32,834 words of Aliens Made Them Get Married, and don't say I never gave you anything!

"There’s a ritual, Colonel! Do you know what *kind* of ritual? You have no idea! There could be – it could be dangerous, or, or – perverse!"

Comments

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

For me the story is quite sad, because I see John, looking like a poor child staring into the window of the candy store. It seemed to me that you left clues that John envies Ronon & Rodney, not just because they each have someone but because they could come out so easily, and here he is, the Good Guy, trying to do the right thing, and he doesn't get to have what he wants, what he needs.

I have to set aside some time to re-read carefully (oh, the pain!) to see if the story tells me why Ronon is with Rodney. You do a wonderful job of showing why Rodney would be with Ronon.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting comment, because both these things occured to me as well while reading. There was definitely the element of envy in John's view, of not being able to do what they can, of feeling left out of their relationship also.

And I also wondered why Ronon chooses Rodney, but in bits it came to me, I think, that he likes being responsible for someone, that he likes taking care of someone. This comes from the various conversations about Rodney telling Ronon that he doesn't have to be responsible for him, and Ronon basically ignoring him and taking care of him anyway.

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

There was definitely the element of envy in John's view, of not being able to do what they can, of feeling left out of their relationship also.

Absolutely. I think John is someone who's always seen himself as a loner, just him and his plane in the bright, clear sky of Antarctica, perfectly happy, and I think (within this story, at least) part of what made him feel so at home in Atlantis is that, as I've often said, it has to be made up mainly of people who have minimal ties and commitments in their own lives. So suddenly instead of being in a world where he's a 40-year-old guy with no wife and no kids and no one to write a letter to saying "hey, I'm not dead," bopping around the world on assignments, now he's normative, now he's sort of accepted as weird-like-everyone-else, and he has this feeling of kinship. I think what the intrusion of Marriage into his little world, into his inner circle, does is open up that possibility -- is it really so great? Why doesn't he want it? *Does* he really want it -- if someone like Rodney can be happy that way, how does John know he wouldn't be? And I think that as well as feeling more distance from these intimate friends of his, he's jealous of how certain he sees them being about who they are and what they want (although of course he overestimates just how sure Rodney is *g*).

in bits it came to me, I think, that he likes being responsible for someone, that he likes taking care of someone

God, yes. I think people always want to feel important, to feel like somebody really needs what they do. Ronon is a loner himself who gets relatively little validation for anything except being able to kick the shit out of people -- which I'm sure he does value, but it's a pretty unbalanced life if that's the only place you think your worth is coming from, and one of the things I enjoy doing in stories is giving him a chance to open his world up so that he can see himself as Atlantis's designated killing machine *and* as some other things, too. And I feel like Rodney needs a lot of taking care of *g*, and I know that he's so incredibly emotive that he would be incapable of hiding how happy it made him if somebody really cherished and cared for him, so I think he'd be a *fantastic* source of the exact kind of validation Ronon needs. Basically, I think whoever finally braves Rodney's, you know, Rodneyness and gets close enough to really be good to him and appreciate him will get *drowned* in Rodney's gratitude; I like this pairing because I think that tsunami of gratitude would mean more to Ronon than it would to most anyone else.

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

For me the story is quite sad

Man, I'm going to give up trying to write happy endings! Clearly I suck at it. *g* In all seriousness, I absolutely think there's an element of jealousy in John's reaction -- part of the problem being that I'm not sure he knows what he wants and needs, while they have that certainty. But to me that's a huge and important part of becoming the person you're supposed to be: those doubts and questions and dissatisfactions. I think John's a hell of a lot further down the road toward wherever he's going by the end of the story than he was at the beginning; the issues all of this raised for him aren't necessarily fun and comfortable (because I get bored writing stories about people who are having too much fun *g*), but I don't think of it as a sad thing that he needs to deal with those issues. I guess to me, that's how people grow, and I think he does in this story.

I have to set aside some time to re-read carefully (oh, the pain!) to see if the story tells me why Ronon is with Rodney.

500,000 fangirls on lj assure me that Rodney is a great catch! *g*

I'm glad you got so much to think about over the story. Hopefully you keep enjoying it on your subsequent trips through!