SGA Big Bang recs

[dragojustine]

Am not dead, just still doing the depression thing, hence the two-week turnaround time responding to communications, and the lack of Christmas cards. But I still love you all and miss you, okay? And I wrote my sga_santa fic, which turned out better than I expected, so that's made me happy enough to post.

Also! I got shiny snowflakes! You guys are so incredibly awesome. Big hugs to amara_m (I want to see you again, hon!), cormallen, rejeneration, advection, and adelate (You rock!).

A while ago I asked for SGA Big Bang recs, and got resounding silence. Plus, lots of the really good stuff I've been reading has had virtually no fb, and that seems like a sad, sad, sad thing to me.

These Proverbs We Made in the Winter Must End by siriaeve
Between the awkward title and the pairing - Ronon/Jennifer - I'm not surprised this didn't get much attention. But I loved Ronon/Jennifer back before the Love Triangle of Idiocy, and I quite like them in this fic. It's a post-series return to Pegasus story in which John, Teyla, and Rodney are captured, and Ronon and Jennifer, cut off from the gate, have to save them.

Ronon's POV is well done; the planet they're trapped on is well-built; the main OC is fantastic, competent, and well drawn; Jennifer just shines; the plot is action-packed, suspenseful, and full of political intrigue.

Pegasus Purgatorio by mrshamill
The info says this is a sequel to something or other, but don't be put off. It stands on its own perfectly well, and if anything I think it's much better with the unexplained beginning and slight struggle to peice together how we got here.

Apocalypse is one of my favorite genres. When some people do apocalypse, a city is destroyed. Or a nation. Occasionally a whole planet. In sci-fi, sometimes you can destroy several planets at a go. Or an entire species.

Pegasus Purgatorio cheerfully destroys an entire galaxy and three species, and does it with love and humanity and charm and flair and enough technobabble to make Gene Roddenberry cry with joy. The war between the Asurans and the Wraith gets out of hand, with Michael's spoiler faction not helping, and Atlantis evacuates the majority of the remaining human population of Pegasus to the Milky Way. John and Rodney are trapped behind. They rebuild a home and a purpose and a family for themselves in the tattered remains of the galaxy and make it their mission to save every last human left in Pegasus and to destroy all three threats once and for all.

The plot is fantastic, and John and Rodney's motivations and development and relationship are perfect, but the real reason you should read this is for the OCs, who are an absolute triumph.

Make the Devil Feel Surprise by telesilla
Hey, look, it's 50k words of telesilla porn! Go!

On the off chance that telesilla isn't an auto-read for everybody, this ought to convince every last one of you: It's a 'Mirror Mirror' evil AU! Jeannie McKay, chief science officer on Atlantis, pimps her pretty little brother out to Colonel Sheppard after their parents die.

This is genius. Sheer fucking genius. It could so easily have been just a setup for some kinky porn, but no! The characterizations are brilliant. All our characters are sociopaths, but they also remain so recognizably themselves. It's stunning. I have no idea how she did it. Every single character. It's a triumph. And there's plot, too! And, oh, right, did I mention the porn?

The Magical Number Seven (Plus or Minus Two) by general_jinjur
Okay, my absolute bulletproof thematic kink? Identity. My favorite SF plot device? Amnesia. My second favorite SF plot device? Clones. The premise of this story? The Mortal Coil clones were never killed, and the Lanteans never regain their memories after Tabula Rasa, and now John Sheppard has to figure out who he is.

Clearly general_jinjur, whoever she is, is inside my head. I would freak out and invest in some tinfoil for my hat, except that she so clearly loves me and wants me to be happy.

How much do I love this story? This much. You'll just have to picture the arms flung wide and the huge grin on my face. Look, it's perfect. The internal voice of amnesiac John Sheppard as he re-creates himself is a joy. The way the Atlantis expedition copes with the complete disaster of plague and patchwork memories is believable and gripping. The characterizations of the clones are subtle and painful and perfect.

Perhaps the most impressive thing of all is the way general_jinjur re-shapes the plotlines of the last season and a half. She keeps events recognizable but lets them veer from their canonical course in logical, if painful, ways, and does just he right amount of showing her work, and it's somehow done through the eyes of a narrator who understands very little without any expository infodumping.

It's not all puppies and kittens - I admit the characterizations of Ronon and Sam made me a little sad, but I can't honestly say I didn't believe in them. We can't unequivocally love all the characters all of the time. And the galaxy really is in fucked-up shape, with no magic way to fix it. Plus, it's gen, but it sure doesn't do anything to dissuade those of us who can't help but see otherwise. But it's still our people, and even after cloning and/or amnesia, they are all still so them, and they have each other and have remade themselves and have somehow, against all odds, found their ways home, and the ending is so perfect I could die.