#honestly i'm tagging every fandom this could apply to because I have yet to decide

[zeeengris]

[beatrice-otter]

Fic: Six Things That Changed Because They Were In A Sedoretu, and One Thing That Didn't

Six Things That Changed Because They Were In A Sedoretu, and One Thing That Didn't (7929 words) by Beatrice_Otter Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Written for: @tielan in Sedoretu Exchange 2023

Relationships: Lee "Apollo" Adama/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Anastasia "Dee" Dualla/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Sam Anders/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Lee "Apollo" Adama/Sam Anders, Sam Anders & Anastasia "Dee" Dualla, Lee "Apollo" Adama/Sam Anders/Anastasia "Dee" Dualla/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace Characters: Lee "Apollo" Adama, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Anastasia "Dee" Dualla, Sam Anders

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Sedoretu, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Happy Ending, Polyamory, Podfic Welcome, Don't copy to another site Summary:

what it says on the tin

On AO3. On Squidgeworld. On Dreamwidth. Rebloggable on pillowfort.

Betaed by iberiandoctor With an old-school fandom, I figured why not go for an old-school format?

Fic wittering and explanation of a sedoretu behind the read-more.

sedoretuex has revealed, and I can now reveal that I wrote TWO stories! (I have not yet had time to read any stories but my own--I have been really busy this January--but I am planning on making my way through the collection soon.)

My second story for this exchange was a pinch hit for tielan that I had been eyeing for treat purposes since the beginning, because our tastes are very similar and every one of her ideas was amazing and absolutely a story I wanted to exist. But there was a problem! Each one of those stories, my feeling was "I want that to exist, but I don't know if I can do justice to it."

Here were my main options:

1) Relationship and prompt I have written for tielan before (MCU, Steve/Maria/Natasha/Bucky, the previous fic being Look Clear and Calm)

2) Really interesting relationship and prompt from a TV show I've only seen sporadic episodes of (Simon Basset/Anthony Bridgerton/Daphne Bridgerton/Kate Sharma (Bridgerton TV), The oldest son and oldest daughter of the Bridgerton family finding and settling on a sedoretu husband and wife for their familial quartet. In the middle of the season. With the ton looking on.)

3) Relationship I requested myself and would really like to se done, but I requested it because I'm not sure of my ability to write it and the canon is a TV show I haven't watched in almost 2 decades. (BSG, Lee/Kara/Sam/Dee)

4) Relationship I already wrote for this ficathon for my original assignment. (Star Wars Legends, Luke/Mara/Leia/Han, the other fic being Dawning Understanding)

And these were just the top four. There were 13 requested quartets and I could have written 10 of them! I was spoiled for choice! Honestly, it was a little bit paralyzing.

But in the end, I went with BSG, and decided that Wikipedia would have to be enough canon review. And it really did write itself; everything poured out. As always, for me, Dee was going to have a major role and survive; I love her and she was done so dirty by canon. Her death was the first time I got incandescently angry about a fridging because I could see it for what it was. And of the relationships in this foursome, Lee/Kara is my least favorite. (I am glad that in Kara we got to have a female character who was fucked up and messy and not punished for it or considered 'whiny,' but at the same time, there were a lot of other fucked up and messy female characters on that show, and a lot of the other character arcs interested me more than 'cosmic destiny + will she and Lee ever get their act together.' But I know that Lee/Kara is tielan's favorite! So as I was plotting out each section I had to restrain myself: how much Dee was too much? What could I find to say about the other three? Because if I was writing it for myself, the balance would have been very different. (But I think it would have been a weaker story, less balanced.)

A sedoretu is a specific organization of a poly marriage created by Ursula K. Le Guin in her short story "A Fisherman of the Inland Sea" aka "Another Story" available in a 1994 short story collection of the same name. It includes four people and specific arrangements of the relationships inside it. All people have a "moiety" that is considered as inherent as gender; the two moieties are Morning and Evening. Sex with someone of the same moiety is considered incest. The expected relationships within each sedoretu are: The Morning woman and the Evening man (the “Morning marriage”) The Evening woman and the Morning man (the “Evening marriage”) The Morning woman and the Evening woman (the “Day marriage”) The Morning man and the Evening man (the “Night marriage”) (i.e. two homosexual and two heterosexual pairings)

Here is the Fanlore explanation of it and the E2 explanation.