On finishing "Written by the Victors": When fic gets you in the gut

[bironic]

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.
 

Comments

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

I think the only fic that has ever punched me hard enough in the gut to make me physically shy away is pwcorgigirl's Afterlife.

And it's not House's death at the end that does it -- it's the vision of a once-vital House, reduced to a brain-damaged shell of his former self, that just sinks its claws into my heart and won't let go.

I literally have trouble rereading this story. The only other story I can think of that I have such a strong reaction to is deelaundry's Locked Up and Set Free.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Did you read friendshipper's Staring at the Sun (http://community.livejournal.com/sga_flashfic/607451.html) (part of the sga_flashfic Wordless Challenge)? That shared a similar premise with "Afterlife" -- permanent brain damage of a major character, care by a parent and the presence of the deeply hurt best friend -- and also left me aching. Not for their death, but for their loss while they're still alive and maybe, maybe, still there, in part, somewhere deep down.

Those two didn't make me cry, but "Locked Up and Set Free" did (though not as hard or as long as the ones I mentioned in my post) -- you probably know the line I mean, at the end -- and in the middle of a workday, no less. There, too, it wasn't a character death that did it, but the miscommunication. If only he'd said what he felt! If only he'd made the right moves when there was still time! It's one of the things that moves me about "Aftershocks," too.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

I did read that. I thought it was very, very good, but I actually preferred another story in the Challenge in which Rodney developed aphasia. For some reason I have some of the same difficulties reading SG:A stories in which John is the injured party as I do reading Hurt!House.

Forgive me not linking the Aphasic!Rodney story -- we're making dinner and I keep coming back to check LJ.

[nightdog-barks.livejournal.com]

Rebuilding Babel.

That's what it was called.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

No prob -- I know the one you mean, and I read it and commented on it. (Another story she wrote in which Rodney suffers from retrograde amnesia is also excellent.)

For some reason I have some of the same difficulties reading SG:A stories in which John is the injured party as I do reading Hurt!House. Mm. See, and that was part of the connection I saw between that story and "Afterlife" -- Wilson and Rodney are sort of fandom's darlings, while John and House are the men they sometimes love. I prefer stories where Wilson is hurt to those where House is, but for some reason I like Rodney- and John-hurt stories about equally. Though I did at first prefer the former. Hm -- that was before I really started liking John; could be a matter of personal attraction.

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with much of this fandom, but the authors should be honored that they've had this intense of an effect on someone.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Which is of course yet another layer of angst in all this -- wondering if you'll ever be able to even write a story that has such an impact on so many people.

(I did leave them both comments in among their billions of other comments, btw. Because, yeah, it's important to let them know.)

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes. I can't help feeling a little mediocre after reading something amazing, and consequently sometimes don't end up leaving feedback at all. Even if "I'm not worthy!" is all I can think, I doubt it's what the author is hoping to hear.

I am, in fact, completely aware that this might not make sense.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Excessive Study Muddled-Brain Syndrome? Heh. No, I think I get what you mean -- and it was the expectation of the post-amazing-fic feeling of mediocrity that made me wait until now to read the story in the first place. The feedback wasn't much of a problem (this time); you figure everything's been said in 21 pages of comments (!) and probably said better, but (a) that means you don't have to worry about saying something new and can just say what you want, and (b) having received feedback on my own stories, I know that I prefer people to just say what they liked without the preface that it's been said before (or *not* saying what they liked because they think it's been said before).

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

Twenty-one? Just. That is hard work paying off.

I feel the same way about my own reviews, which just makes it even sillier to fret over giving them to others.

[ignazwisdom.livejournal.com]

I was cruising by Speranza's journal the other night and seeing the response to the story and just -- being really, really happy for her. I haven't read the story and I'm probably not going to, because I made the mistake of reading a Speranza story once five years ago and now due South and I are practically married. I don't have time for another fandom! *hides* But she's an incredible author and seems like a genuinely nice person and I'm glad that the story has been affecting so many people.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Heh -- she unwittingly helped seduce me into SGA, too. I understand your hesitation. When you're a dedicated fan, you can only take so many canons!

I'm happy for her, too -- the adulation is much deserved, as it was for her other remarkable stories (well, I can vouch for almost all of the ones I've read, anyway). The real challenge for her, I think, is going to be figuring out how to follow this one up.

[purridot.livejournal.com]

Reposting to correct stuff.

Outlander didn't make you weep? ;-)

Thank you for the SG:A rec. I was a bit alarmed when you said you were sobbing, but I understand now that it was for a good cause. Putting it on my Must Read list.

Regarding heartaches: I have a special "sad song" that I play when I read something that is supposed to be sad ("Farewell" from the Children of Dune soundtrack -- I know, FTW!), so that makes any death!fic that much worse/better (depending how you look at it).

I think possibly the only time I ever cried at a non-sad fic was mer_duff's The A to Z of House" (http://mer-duff.livejournal.com/1441.html) .* The idea was cute, but the execution was phenomenal -- in so few words she sketched little word paintings, sad, happy, and every emotion in between. The delicacy was just so amazing and haunting.

And I am always moved by anagnorisis. I keep meaning to write blurbs in my LJ about the things that I like best about fanfic (but I'm shy), and that is probably at the top of my list.

*Remember, up here it's zed ;-)

[synn.livejournal.com]

I've never been punched in the gut by a fic. I can't really imagine what would have that sort of affect on me, either. I always see these comments by people about stories (fic, or books, or movies) bringing them to tears, or more significantly, staying with them for hours, days, weeks -- but I don't know what that actually feels like.

I know what it feels like to tear up a little when a character dies in a really well-written fic, I know what it is to ache along with a character over relationship angst/unrequited love, but not to have it stay with me.
I don't think I'm ever completely immersed in a work; there's always part of me that's looking at how it's written. I go to plays and half the time I'm thinking about the scenery or staging rather than the actors. With movies it's the music and cinematography.

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

I think what tends to get me in fics (and in stories generally - fiction, myth, history) is similar to what you describe: the sense of someone's small life having meaning, of their story becoming part of a huge, maybe even universal, archetypal story. I hadn't thought of this before, but it may be that my pwn fears that I'll never do or be part of something exceptional, something that really changes the world, might be part of that. (This crops up a lot when I'm reading/writing historical fiction.)

Another thing that really affects me in fics is loss (which sounds painfully obvious, doesn't it?), but character death doesn't always hit me as badly as a way of life lost, or a secure, contented way of looking at the world lost. For example, I've read a few excellent HP fics set at the end of the first war with Voldemort, and James and Lily's deaths affected me less than Sirius' imprisonment in those stories. Death you can get over (and by "you" I don't mean the dead person, obviously, although in scifi and fantasy I suppose that's always on the table in some way :)), but believing that Sirius has betrayed them all shatters the way Remus looks at the world and sends him to a very dark place. I'm not sure what makes that worse: the way it seems to shut off all possibility? The way it taints everything that went before, as the characters are now forced to reexamine all of it? But it's strangely brutal.

I just wanted to add, though, that from what I've seen of your writing, if that's the way you want to influence the world and be remembered, you're in a much better position than I think you realise. You have a talent for quiet, raw, affecting writing that's difficult to forget.

[bell]

I think for a fic to gut-punch me, there has to be a big set-up. And, loving gut-punches, it's why I prefer longer stories & series to short stories.

As for ache, I think watching a character struggle does me in. Not in a whinging "MY LIFE SUCKS" kind of way, but in that they fell down and now they have to get back up and it takes them a while. "The Body Found" by fourteencandles is a good example-- no death but it still made me hurt because it was so hard for Wilson and House to overcome that experience.

[roga.livejournal.com]

Post-amazing-fic-mediocrity is something I definitely identify with. This fic didn't leave my mind for two days after I'd read it; I kept refreshing the page just to see how many more people commented and thinking yes, it DESERVES it.

What you said about Victors and Freedom resonating with you on a more personal level - I understand what you're saying, and on the one level I feel it too, especially in Victors which is more traditionally heroic - it really is a story of myth and legend. But on the other hand, leaving a legacy like that requires incredible sacrifice. In Victors, they cut themselves away from Earth, they went through things that would give any normal human being PTSD (and, okay, probably them too). In Freedom, Rodney has to live his life with the burden of having committed xenocide, and it's a hard load to carry - it takes him time just to admit it in the fic, and it's the reason he won't cooperate with the SGC any more.

I don't remember where I heard this, that one of the causes of human unhappiness is the difference between how we want to live and how we want to be remembered. Ask a person how they ideally want to live, they'll answer drinking cocktails on a beach with their family; ask them like whom they want to be remembered, and they'll answer like Washington (okay, so I read this in Hebrew and the original was David Ben Gurion, but you get the drift).

Anyway. I'm not trying to make you feel better or anything, this isn't the sort of thing to feel 'better' about - but that's my perspective.

(Oh, and by the way - I don't know if you knew, but Freedom has a fascinating DVD commentary, and a short coda. Which is uplifting, and gives some more closure.)

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I have been suspecting for a long time now that I should investigate SGA more... But I have been resisting this pull, for some reason. lol But you are making my resolve crumble a little. It's a whole other show though -- how will I catch up? lol

having read this, I can now comment, yay!

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Wrecked? It might not be just you, but it's not me. 'Victors' delighted me as no other fan fiction has done, I think in a large way because it passed itself off as nonfiction. Fictitious nonfiction is one of my favourite genres, followed by nonfiction about fiction.

And that's at the crux of it, I think, the attention to time and memory in "Victors" [...] 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

Maybe it's just that I never wanted to be a hero or a writer, but it was that same aspect of the story (and other fictitious nonfiction) that left me so elated. In the end it's not about them, not about John and Rodney and Teyla and Ronon living on -- puny mortals that they are -- through history, but about history living on through them (and past them, and sometimes despite them), about the future generations of fangirls/academics who will always be there, speaking new languages, telling new myths, and having new academic feuds.

Re: having read this, I can now comment, yay!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, you remembered this post.

In the end it's not about them, not about John and Rodney and Teyla and Ronon living on -- puny mortals that they are -- through history, but about history living on through them

Yes, absolutely. The reason I reacted the way I did had way more to do with my ego and my approach to / feelings about mortality than with her story as it stood. I think the story left me primed to feel something, deeply, and in the epilogue it swung from the elation you felt, and appreciation, to a deep clutching sadness because of that very insignificance of individual human lives.