hth | Atlantis fic: De Profundis

De Profundis
by Hth

My journey into OT4 continues. Not as porny as "Works and Plays Well With Others," not as musical as "Headbanger's Ball." This actually...didn't go at all where I expected it to.

There was no set of circumstances where that particular configuration of fire, electricity, cultists, gravity, and sociopolitical upheval was going to give anyone a good feeling, but worse this time than normal, because by that point Rodney had gotten used to all three of them and also kind of more or less fallen in love.

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Oh my god. This was excellent. I've teared up a bit and am really not sure what to say other than I really liked it. This is a fic that reaches out and smacks me silly, hitting emotional buttons, even ones I didn't know I had. It's achingly bittersweet and doesn't really wallow. The latter especially is so hard to find.

Thank you! Wallowing is a treacherous thing, because you never see the line coming -- you're just humming along, writing your little story, and then you see the line and it's somewhere behind you, and you're caught in the wallow. I know the sensation well.

Okay, you win. You made me cry.

I like Rodney thinking he's hallucinating Teyla really a lot.

*g* Everybody thinks I'm *trying* to make them cry! Like I get a Christmas bonus if I manage it. Actually, could I get a Christmas bonus for managing it? Because that would be killer.

Thanks for the feedback! Glad you liked it.

Oh. Oh.

Simply wonderful.

Thank you!

Really really really enjoyed this. They're all so obstonately blind, and yet they care about each other and put it all out there, and finally, finally you can see them growing up, still taking care of each other... It's not an easy ending, but I loved it. It's hopeful.

I think growing up is a good term to use. Particularly by the ending, I think there's this transition that's probably been building for a while that leaves John and Rodney in desk jobs (John for the first time, Rodney returning to that kind of work after a few years of Adventuring) and Ronon and Teyla entering civilian life. And I think that isn't easy -- moving away from how you saw yourself and what you did with your life when you were younger, but it's a pretty common thing to wake up and have happen to you, when you're in your thirties and forties like these people. But I'm a real proponent of changing when it's time to change; I think they'll be fine, they'll adapt to new lives, and the constant is always your family, you know?

Anyway, enough rambling. Glad you enjoyed the story!

"Nothing," Rodney said quickly. "Except – you know, what if – she’s your Edith Keeler? Only...alive?" Sheppard gave him as disbelieving and contemptuous a look as he could manage through the comfortable haze of medication. "Well, you know what I mean. The whole – side by side – once in a lifetime – you know, like your Scully, your Rose– or, wait, no!" he realized, snapping his fingers eagerly. "Delenn! She’d be your Delenn."

I've only got this far into the story and I love you. I love you. I can't breath and I'm going to cry.

Rodney would be exactly that kind of fangeek, the kind who associates really big and meaningful things with fiction in opposition to real life. We recognize our own. *g*

(no subject)

From:

copracat - Date: 2007-03-02 06:23 am (UTC) - Expand

Oh, this is stunning, in the literal sense of the word—it left me breathless and near tears. Oh, team.

Thank you! My goal is to make everyone <3 them even half as much as I do, because then the fandom will be full of sunshine and puppies and good fic. No, really!

Oh, wow, stunning. I love how you wrote the connection between them. That's the story. That's the beauty here.

Oh, Rodney, scifi!legend, you kill me here: "Nothing," Rodney said quickly. "Except – you know, what if – she’s your Edith Keeler? Only...alive?" Sheppard gave him as disbelieving and contemptuous a look as he could manage through the comfortable haze of medication. "Well, you know what I mean. The whole – side by side – once in a lifetime – you know, like your Scully, your Rose– or, wait, no!" he realized, snapping his fingers eagerly. "Delenn! She’d be your Delenn." I saw the name Edith Keeler and I thought, "Hmm, I know that from somewhere... oh! Could it be? ST: TOS reference for the win!". Also? *waves* Another B5 fan here.

Definitely reccing this one, thank you :).

I'm actually a second-generation fan; my dad has been a serious TOS fan since its first run, so I have an advantage when it comes to tossing out the references -- I was literally raised on that damn show! *g* And Sheppard and Teyla have reminded me of Sheridan and Delenn from day one; I've been storing that reference up for some time now, waiting for just the right story *g*

I'm so glad you liked the story.

I made a community for you!:

team_sga. Because stories like this make me so totally happy.

Woot! I hope it generates much team-love. And I like the way you framed the community's parameters -- not exclusively either gen or OT4, but anything along that continuum.

This is a beautiful story. The love between all four comes through so clearly. Thanks!

Glad you liked it!

I'm suddenly in love with romantic OT4s, and this is a great one.

Thank you!

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

More than happy to -- thanks for the feedback!

This was really beautiful, the way you showed us how each two of them are connected and love one another in various different ways. I think this is one of the more moving and believable OT4s I've read, no imbalances but also not the they're all together as a team. Instead you offer these 6 different permutations with different investments and goals and different forms of love. And in the end it works, "reckless promises" and all.

Thank you!

One of the things that always attracts me to poly relationships as a writer is that you can bring out all these different sides of the characters, just through the things they admire in each other and need from each other. You have a good way of putting it -- the goals can be different, and it's a cool way of bringing out all the different and sometimes contradictory things that people are looking for in life. And it's never really about unifying your life, just about balancing it, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked it. Thanks!

this is really thoroughly beautiful. It's my favorite kind of moresome story -- the kind where the characters really just love their family of choice so incredibly powerfully, and sex is just one aspect of that love.

Absolutely. I went through a phase of trying to make it more of a traditional OT4 story, and then I finally gave up, because I started to feel like it didn't make any real difference whether or not I filled in all the blanks with Sheppard and Ronon, Ronon and Teyla, Teyla and McKay -- the issue wasn't are they or aren't they having sex, it was just at what point they realized how much they needed each other. I'm glad it worked for you the way it finally shook out.

it's really kinda hard to explain to coworkers just why I'm tearing up - but this was so amazing and wonderful and hit all my buttons.

I've always had a soft spot for your Ronon/Rodney stories and apparently I also stumbled into love for OT4 somewhere along the way. thanks for that!

I'm glad to take credit for more OT4 love in the world! Thanks for the kind words about the story.

Oh, this is so very beautiful and the most believable OT4 fic I've read. I love how you write these characters so accurately while still turning them somehow into actual people, complicated and difficult and surprising. That's the thing I always find amazing about your characterisation - that you take these canonical/fanonical tropes of characterisation and add history and reality and emotional weight, make them into three-dimensional people. Your Rodney, here, just makes my heart clench, and your Teyla - she's so, so wonderful here, the best Teyla I've ever seen written. And it's the same for how you write relationships - I adore, in this fic, the differing, complicated ways in which they're in love with each other, and in love with each other together (if that makes sense? that Rodney loves how John and Teyla are in love as well as how Ronon loves them - separately and together - as well as each of them individually). And now I'm babbling. Um. Shorter version: I love this, thank you.

Thank you! And thank you especially for hitting on one of the things I wanted to do with this story -- I wanted them all to be, in a sense, each other's shippers *g* Particularly with Rodney, since it's his POV, I wanted him to come across as genuinely in support of John & Teyla's relationship and genuinely happy for Ronon getting to stay with them -- that balance between what Rodney wants for himself and what he wants for them qua them. See, it doesn't make any more sense when I say it! But you know what I mean. *g*

I'm really glad you liked the story; thank you.

This story is just the sweetest thing. Given all their various personality foibles I can believe this sceanrio. *goes to read again*

Thank you so much!

Yeah, I liked this a lot... the love that they have for each other and the breaking away from pre-set relationship paradigms to find that they *all* fit each other... polyamory in the very best way.

Thank you! I'm all about the non-pre-set relationship paradigms *g*

Reading this fic is like playing with a kaleidoscope--there's a certain mesmerizing quality to the process of watching all the bright individual elements shaken up and rearranged into new patterns.

The Athosian wedding ritual was charming, and the whole "imprisonment" sequence was very creepy and tense--especially in the manner of its telling, with the details of what was happening being revealed so obliquely.

Other moments I enjoyed:

In the Pegasus galaxy, hope was a psychological necessity; too much grim reality and you couldn’t stand it, nobody could stand it. Rodney had come to terms with his share of bitter truths in the past few years, and in fact he took pride in his ability to assess probabilities and formulate likely outcomes without overly clouding his judgment with...wanting a lot of things, or hoping things would work themselves out...but even for him, there had to be an upper limit.

the mute, stubborn unhappiness on his face reminded Rodney quite uncomfortably of being seven years old and pretending he wasn’t a genius and didn’t know what his parents meant when they said divorce.

or maybe being all stoic and martyred and heroic just got old even for two world-class champions of the art

Like maybe he should treat it like some rather delicate medical condition instead, all euphemisms and false optimism.

did you have a better plan? I mean, for the rest of your life? You had something better than her lined up?"

Rodney barely knew what to do with Sheppard’s blunt-force restraint at the best of times, let alone when it lapsed into clinical dissociation.

All Ancient programming was chock-full of redundancies, which was very prudent of them and also showed they’d had a whole damn lot of time on their hands that Rodney could only dream of.

I have known the three of you for nearly five years now, and if we did not know this morning which of us loves whom and why, we will not work it out here and now.

in the same tone someone else might have used to say they’re coming in through the walls

for one nauseous second Rodney knew the answer, the obvious, elegant solution like a proof falling into place

(I'll admit to a slight confusion regarding the cranberry-orange powerbar: I can understand why Rodney wouldn't freak out about it, if he thought he was only imagining everything...but are we to take it that he had some sort of allergic reaction after Teyla's kiss? Or did she just smell of citrus and not taste of it?)

Thanks for writing!

~

Thank you! I'm glad you liked the story and took so much time to feedback in detail.

As for the citrus issue, the answer is exactly what you perhaps guessed but were too polite to imply: I'm an idiot, and I forget. *g* It's not even the first time I've done that! I have Rodney compare something to mimosas in another story, and after I posted it, someone was like, "Um, did you just kind of obliquely kill Rodney?" And yes. Yes, I did.

Re: De Profundis (SGA, team)

From:

nindulgence.livejournal.com - Date: 2007-03-10 06:37 pm (UTC) - Expand

though I'm not a hardcore anti-shipper, I so rarely read any John/Teyla that this strikes me as a perfect thing. The four of them are so irrevocably intertwined that it would be an impossible thing to separate them, but that Rodney's the one that gives is marvelous. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Thank you! I like stories where Rodney is called upon to be self-sacrificing -- people think I'm just being mean to Rodney, but I give him the gift of getting to be noble! Or, er, something like that. *g*

Aww, I liked how it was kind of sad, but also hopeful in the end.

Thank you! I think the ending is more just about change than it is about sad or happy -- in that both of those imply a static state, whereas big life changes always seem to encompass all of that and then some.

This is so powerful and absorbing and gloriously, wonderfully them. I'm very glad I read it, and will certainly be rereading it in the future.

Thank you! It's relatively easy to write a story that kills some time up front, but it's something special to come up with one that repays a second reading, or more. I really appreciate that you want to go there with this one.

That was just wonderful. The love and the pain and then at the end more love. See how incoherent you have made me?

Thank you! The general gist is more than clear enough for me. *g*

Okay, I'm going to cry now. I loved this, even though I wanted to bang all of their heads together at various points (especially Lt. Col. Clueless).

Hee! Somehow I just naturally seem to write a Sheppard that makes people want to hit him. I don't know why that is. *I* don't want to hit him; I think he's fabulous. Or maybe I do want to hit him? Subconsciously or something? Hmmm. Anyway, I'm glad you liked the story -- thank you!

::gasps::

::blinks back tears::

oh, Rodney.

This was beautiful and sharp and sweet and loving - all at once.

thank you so much for sharing.

Thank you for the feedback! I'm so glad you liked it.

This is gorgeous, and I love it even more reading it the second time around.

Thank you! I told someone else, it's pretty easy to write a story that entertains someone for the space of time it takes to read it. The tough part is writing one that repays a second reading. I'm glad this one got there for you.