Pure Bodies and Clean Hearts by Speranza (Virgin Challenge)

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Title: Pure Bodies and Clean Hearts (26k)
Author: Speranza
Pairing: McShep
Summary: John gets a do-over.

Thanks to shalott, giddy, and res for beta beyond the call of duty.

Comments

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

This was wonderful, wonderful, and absolutely the perfect thing to read tonight (and pretty perfect in general). I so want John to have that second chance, and be able to connect with people, really--and not just with Rodney (though there was some glorious connecting with Rodney in this story), but with the whole team, which you show here, beautifully.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much; you know, just offhand, I've been meaning to write to you because I've been slowly working my way through your back-catalogue and your writing is really rocking my world; you're just wildly inventive in an unsettling way that I envy and enjoy but can't manage myself (can't resist the punchline, which has it's place but is a fatal flaw for a certain kind of horror/moral ambiguity. *g* I think, too, I'm often drawn to writers who are very stylistically different from me; I want to read what I can't write, otherwise I'd bloody well write it myself!) And your stuff is just really amazing--really, not just inventive, but with knife-clean execution. I'm just really loving it.

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to reply to this for days, but every time I dissolve into hand-waving and general verklempt-ness. Thank you. It really means a lot for you to say something like that, because I admire your work so much. I love your sense of humor and I think your stories can cut just as sharply and just as cleanly--snark in the darkness is an asset, as far as I'm concerned. (I've been well-schooled by Joss Whedon.) I also admire just your general attitude toward fandom--classy and capable. So it makes me immensely pleased that you like my fumblings. I don't know what I'm doing, but for the most part, I'm having fun.