John got to be King of Atlantis! He got to make babies and have as much sex with Rodney as he liked. From a fannish perspective, there's no wrong there.

Me, I felt the romance interfered with the political storyline, which itself was a bit too simplified. The SGA characters were valorized, their enemies demonized, and all the legitimate logistical complications of isolation from Earth were handwaved into nonexistence. Also, from a colonialism standpoint, it's Dances With Wolves with John in the Kevin Costner role. Pegasus is saved by King John, who never once considers that the cost of his rebellion may well be the lives of 6 billion people on Earth at the hands of the Ori.

I'm not saying they should have taken Atlantis to Earth, but the story doesn't even grant the question a legitimate hearing.

The Atlantis as kingdom part didn't bother me, it was the part with an Earth fleet on one side and a Wraith fleet on the other side, but instead of resolving the problem, they jumped to the "and this is how the stories talked about what happened" portion. It felt like "we don't know how to resolve this so we won't bother."

What she said. Only moreso.

It felt like "we don't know how to resolve this so we won't bother."

Yeah, I can see how it felt that way. It didn't bother me as much, but it was inconsistent with the structure, which had already established a reliable 3rd person narrator in John's pov. If there was no Atlantis-based pov, that ending would have been more consistent.

I'm fully expecting to be run out of fandom on a rail.

And when was the last time fandom ran you out on a rail?

It's just a story, for god's sake. Not even my favorite Cesperanza story.

which had already established a reliable 3rd person narrator in John's pov.

The first time I read it I felt that John was an unreliable narrator. I never felt that what he was saying WAS an accurate assesment of the situation and I wanted to see from someone else's pov (especially Teyla or Ronan) to know how accurte that picture was.

It's just a story, for god's sake. Not even my favorite Cesperanza story.

Okay, yeah, but... public questioning of the value of a beloved story tends to raise hackles. I'm sure there's a few people watching the conversation and getting pissy at me for dissing a story that they love so much.

And you know, I don't think people shouldn't love it: it's intended to be loved. It did what she wanted it to do, and more power to her for having the skill to succeed in that.

Which sounds condescending, but really, I wouldn't mind having that kind of knowing control over my audience. I never know how people are going to respond to most of my stuff.

Pegasus is saved by King John, who never once considers that the cost of his rebellion may well be the lives of 6 billion people on Earth at the hands of the Ori.

That was a big problem for me with the story. As well as the fact that everyone on Atlantis except Weir was so enamored of John and his "mineMineMINE!" attitude toward the city that they were not only hunky dory with making a permanent break with earth but never had arguments or even voiced reservations about all the decisions John was making for them afterwards. Only outsiders from Earth were allowed to have dissenting opinions in any substantial way, and of course they were wrong and mean.

Also, once you've melted your colonel's bars down and cast them into a sculpture of an earthward-pointing middle finger, keeping your relationship with your boyfriend on the downlow seems kinda pointless to me.

Usually I really like Speranza's SGA fiction, and I've really liked more recent ones of hers. But I did not drink the Kool-aid for Victors.

I did enjoy seeing the outsiders' perspectives on the new Atlantis, and the idea of the legends of Atlantis becoming unreadable to an Earth reader's perspective was clever. I'm too much a plot whore, though, to be content with third-hand, legendary retellings, I like to be down in the trenches of "whath appens next?"

I don't think this approach has been done before, so that might explain some of the great reception the story has had. I'm surprised there haven't been copycats.

I don't think this approach has been done before,

Actually, I used a very similar structure on a story I posted last summer; of course, it was gen, for a remix challenge, and received nothing near that kind of rapturous reception. ::wry grin::