Confess your love (as well as your folly)

[sugangel7]

Title: Confess your love (as well as your folly)
Fandom: Fringe
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Peter/Olivia
Word Count: ~1650
Spoilers: Through “Concentrate and Ask Again.”
Summary: Post-“Marionette.” He lives in purgatory, with Heaven just out of reach.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the fabulous show that is Fringe or the beautiful song that is “White Blank

Comments

[ziparumpazoo]

Oh that song is perfect! (actually, that whole album has been my ficathon writing playlist because it's just so, so.... yeah.) Really enjoyed this, especially the parallels between Olivia(s) and Peter's mother deceiving him. Very nicely done.

[sugangel7]

I know, I'm so glad to have gotten that song as a prompt -- made writing this so much easier. :)

Thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad you enjoyed the parallels. With all the parallels in the show, I feel the one about all the women in Peter's life deceiving him sometimes gets lost in the discussion.

[lunawho]

First off, great song choice for inspiration! (I've had Mumford and Sons' album on repeat in my car for like two weeks straight). I thought of Peter and his situation the first time I heard it, so to have one of my favourite P/O writers use it to inspire fanfic is like a dream come true.

Also, I love how this story works not only as an amazing fic, but also as a sort of argumentative essay as to why Peter didn't notice (or decided to ignore, to be more accurate) Altivia's differences from Olivia. I made a lot of these arguments during that period when everyone was going through their "hate Peter" phase for a while there, but no one would listen to me. I think your fic does a much better job of saying what most us were trying to get across to the "haters" at that period.

And I love your ending especially. Peter knowing it wasn't really Olivia in LSD was one of my favourite moments.

This is just perfect. Beautiful and perfect.

[sugangel7]

I was SO so happy to get that song as my prompt. Writing this was actually quite easy, because the lyrics evoked so much about Peter and Olivia's situation that I feel definitely needed to be said -- especially for those who may still hold Peter accountable to perhaps an unfair extent.

But yes, I wanted this fic to be part Peter's confession and part my apology (defense) of him. The trick was making sure that all my argumentative points were made in such a way that this was a fic and not an essay.

So glad you liked the ending and that you thought of Peter in "LSD" getting it right because I definitely meant to allude to that.

Thanks so so much for your detailed and lovely feedback, Luna!

[tilden13]

Oh, lovely. I always feel weird using the word "parallels" in a discussion of a show whose bread and butter is parallel universes, but nonetheless I love how you've drawn and underscored...uh, those...between both Peter's being forced/desperate to trust two mothers, and then how both Olivias were able, at different points, to bluff him. Clearly, he's susceptible to this, and can be blinded or manipulated by love.

I don't know if you meant to do it, but there are several lines that even play this up: There are only two women in his life who’ve ever successfully bluffed him and For all his stupidity, Peter Bishop is not the type of man who makes the same mistake twice. Oh, the irony!--because poor BlueElizabeth fooled him, too. Lovely and so sad

[sugangel7]

Thank you so much for your detailed feedback! You caught onto double meanings I hadn't really intended for a few of my lines

[ciderapples]

[sugangel7]

!Glad you enjoyed the connections I made. I'd been a bit worried that I was dragging it out too much or pointing out something too obvious, but then their pasts and their presents and how those two together make Peter and Olivia who they are was central to this story.

I think "unforgiving" was definitely a tone I was trying to get across in this, because I feel so much of that in the song.

Thank you so much for the lovely feedback!

[rainer76]

But he cannot return and there is another woman who feels real, a woman who looks and acts so much like the mother he remembers, and he makes himself forget.

(Years later he cannot return and there will be another woman who feels real, a woman who looks and acts so much like the one he loves, and this other will make him forget.)I apologise, more eloquent people have provided better feedback, but this combination of lines stands out for me. All the characters in Fringe are so brilliantly flawed, and those flaws are rooted in history and backstory. Along with Olivia, I've always found Peter's psychology fascinating, and deeply underplayed. I know some people complain about it in narrative terms, but I actually prefer it. In reality, survivors don't dwell on the past, it's that ability which keeps them moving forward, keeps them *surviving*, and both Olivia and Peter demonstrate it in spades. Like zip, I love that he reads her reports about Over There, that he knows, perceives, imagines what she suffered, but won't broach the

[sugangel7]

Thanks so much for your kind words.

And yeah, I definitely see Peter as this man who doesn't dwell on the past - otherwise how would he have ever forgiven Walter?