Ten years of reccing: April 2008-March 2009
Welcome to the third installment of my tenth anniversary reccing posts! Follow the tag if you've missed the previous entries.
Below is a selection of recs during the 12-month period from April 2008-March 2009. I did my best not to rec a story from an author who has already been featured, which meant skipping a lot of favorites...
I kept it down to ten this time. If you want more, feel free to explore figs_sg1_rec's archive. There's lots there, I assure you. :)
One Forgotten Day, by Vain_glorious. A fantastic crossover with Ronon of SGA before Ronon actually exists on SGA, and it works.
From the original rec:
I can't call this AU, because an Ancient infuriates Daniel by pressing the reset button. But it's definitely a fascinating glimpse of pre-Atlantis Ronon, still tracked and running, as he tries to comprehend this annoying guy who won't stop talking and, impossibly, has never heard of the Wraith.
Poor Daniel spends most of the story in one stage of whump or another, but he never stops being himself - fighting back when he can, arguing, trying to make peace. Ronon is a fascinating study in contrasts, as he doesn't hesitate to shoot or even gag Daniel, yet is afraid to leave him vulnerable to a Wraith attack. And the courage of his decision, at the end of the story, leaves the reader hoping that he'll meet the Atlantis Expedition really, really soon.
You'll enjoy the mystery, the tension, the confusion - it's all good.
Distracted again by the objects before him, Daniel moved away from the cliffside. Some of the debris covered shapes looked like they once formed walls. Daniel whipped out his tape recorder again, babbling a half-formed theory about the possibility that he’d just tripped and landed in Atlantis. He walked on, eyes on a clear shape sticking up, mostly uncovered. It was some kind of archway, like the frame of a huge cube. He’d never seen anything like it, and immediately began describing it into his recorder. He reached out to dust off the glyphs on a panel on its side, and suddenly the panel lit up. Daniel withdrew his hand, and stepped back, unsure what he’d done.
There was a figure standing inside the cube frame, a massively tall man with a tangle of hair, who whipped out a gun and shot Daniel with a pulse of burning red energy before he could even say a word.
Girls (and Jaffa) Do Not Fight Fair, by Kalquessa. Deliciously teamy and YAY SAM as Jack has to watch his team having fun without him!
From the original rec:
General Jack O'Neill meets SG-1 returning from a crisis off-world. Turns out the local baddie forced them into the fighting arena, but Sam - and Teal'c - manage to pwn everyone in sight, so it's only a matter of prying a distracted Daniel out of badly-fitted chainmail and calling Doctor Lee to tell him that SG-1 have already saved themselves, thank you very much.
Poor Jack, all nostalgic for being shot at...
I love the way this is hilariously funny without being cracky in the slightest. Because the pwnage is all canon.
"SG-1 are alright then, sir?"
Oh yeah," Jack confirms. "A little kidnapping and being sold into forced gladiatorial combat. Nothing they couldn't handle. Carter got to bite people and threaten someone with a prison shiv. Sounds like they had a good time, all around."
He gives a little sigh, which must sound more wistful than it's supposed to, because Walter smiles and says "Missing offworld travel, sir?"
Jack fixes him with a very serious stare and says "I don't know what you're talking about, Walter."
Blood and Wires, by Laura Maxwell. Sharply-edged Jack and Daniel friendship is always one of my favorites, especially in a case like this, when their philosophies differ so strongly.
From the original rec:
Laura gives us sharp, edged, vintage Jack and Daniel in the aftermath of Double Jeopardy. Jack only wants to move on and forget about their dead doubles, but Daniel just won't leave it alone: how to relate to them, how to think of them, how to mourn them. Jack just wants to stop thinking; Daniel won't stop.
This is just so perfectly them, as they circle round and round each other.
Remember when robot!Jack asked, "Are we still so far from real to you?" Yeah, this kind of answers it.
"... in one sense, they could even be considered our children."
Jack's pleased smirk vanished so quickly, it felt like someone had vacuumed it right off his face. "What?!" he choked. His hand hit the edge of a book, and the stack toppled every which way. Jack winced.
"Or our siblings," Daniel went on, oblivious, "or even near-identical reflections of ourselves. We've encountered similar things before, with the quantum mirror." That was different, Jack thought helplessly. "Or I could just be completely over-complicating things."
"Heaven forfend," Jack replied, picking up the fallen books.
Learning Curve... Tilt?, by Lokei (G). I gleefully confess that I inspired this one. Whee!
From the original rec:
Lokei pokes gentle fun at the popular "clumsy Daniel" trope. With the deft use of some charming OCs and great cameos from Nyan and Teal'c, the newest recruits at the SGC find themselves watching Dr. Daniel Jackson with absorbed fascination, waiting for the inevitable crashes that never quite happen. And with all their attention elsewhere...
Add an extra nod to the bullying fanon, a Jack who sees right through Daniel, and a deadpan final line that will have you sputtering, and you've got a laugh-out-loud Daniel fic that you'll love as much as I do!
Lokei always does a great mischievous!Daniel. This one is downright classic.
Overheard in the SGC new recruit orientation: “And that’s Dr. Daniel Jackson. If you meet him in the hallway, don’t let the polite distraction fool you. That man opened the Stargate and has helped save the planet more times than you’ve sneezed. His brain is lethal.” A pause. “And so is that stack of paper.”
Beside me, singing in the wilderness, by Rigel. I adore good pre-series Abydos stories. This one is just plain beautiful.
from the original rec:
Daniel, Skaara, Abydos, and moonshine. What more do you need?
How about lush and loving prose that evokes scents and sights and tastes to put you right there in the story with Daniel? Perhaps it's the gentle weaving of past events with current ones, as Daniel's mind wanders to other occasions involving alcohol. Or, most of all, Rigel's enchanting portrayal of Abydos, in which she creates the rich and vibrant society that embraced Daniel as one of its own.
There aren't enough Abydos stories out there. This is one of my favorites.
"It is good?" Skaara clasps his shoulder and leans down to whisper in his ear. "Will it work?"
He'd spent weeks with the metalworkers, scratching out designs with burnt sticks of charcoal on slabs of stone, gesturing and explaining with his hands. He'd even fashioned a working model from clay and demonstrated its workings- to the delight of the clusters of children that had taken to following him around during the day.
"Yes," he says, standing up and placing his new brother's hands at the handle. "You try it."
There are shouts of joy as the water begins to flow.
He thinks now of windmills and pipes that will carry it uphill - even across the desert to Nagada - and scoops a handful of sweet water to his lips, washing away the dust.
Stories of Gods and Heroes, by Bratfarrar. Eloquence in brevity.
From the original rec:
Classic team as Greek mythology.
There are no words. Seven paragraphs: an awesomely profound character study for Jack and Daniel and Teal'c and Sam. Go read, and marvel.
Impossible to excerpt this one, but it is, in a way, the ultimate of character studies. And it's stunning.
Determination and Determination: Practicality. You can't write Sha're as a modern Western woman. But you have to write has as strong. Too few people get taht right, but Beatrice Otter does!
from the original rec:
In this AU, it was Daniel and Skaara who were abducted by Apophis, and it is Sha're who comes to Earth and goes to Chulak with the rest of SG-1 in an effort to get her people back. Beatrice treats us to a woman who watches, and waits, and learns; who navigates the foreign ways of Earth and the SGC with wisdom and caution, using patience and just a touch of guile. We see her careful meeting with General Hammond, her dealings with Sam and Walter and Siler, and her powerful confrontation with Teal'c, which pays tribute to the worldview of both and the strength of the woman who inspired the rebellion on Abydos.
I love her strength and her thinking in both these stories. They feel so right.
Sha’re spun around, fists clenching and unclenching, to face the door. She could not stand to look at him now, not without trying to kill him with her bare hands. It took her some few minutes to control her breathing sufficient to reply. “You think me as foolish and hot blooded as a man,” she said at last.
“I do not understand,” Teal’c said. She heard cloth rustling; he must be standing.
“A man can afford to throw away a tool because it angers him,” Sha’re replied without turning around. “A woman must be more practical. We cannot afford grand, foolish gestures.” She pivoted until she was at right angles to both her enemy and the door. “I will see my husband and brother free,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “And then I will see the false gods destroyed. But I will need your knowledge of their habits and their tongue and their weaknesses. And I will need your courage and skill in battle. You will not die for me, Teal’c,” she said, lifting her chin high. “You will live. And you will teach, and you will fight. And when the last Goa’uld is dead, then you may ask again.”
Daniel of Abydos, by Nightspear. First four novels at AO3; last novel on LJ or at FF.net. I have so much love for this AU series, which was still being written when I first recced it in 2008 and was completed in 2010. Here is a Daniel born and rasied on Abydos (his parents opened the Stargate in the '80s) who is still wholly and wonderfully Daniel. The novels cover the first seven seasons, with twists and turns and the most stunning characterization throughout.
It's difficult to excerpt a rec, or even a few lines, from five long, delicious stores that add up to over 1,000,000 words. But read this for the friendships, for the intelligence of the characters' reactions, for the honesty of repercussions, for the people who live and die in different ways than they do in canon. It is so incredibly worth it.
As Long As It Takes, by Gayalondiel. This AU is painful - in a good way. Because Daniel won't give up on Jack, and there's always hope.
from the original rec:
Gayalondiel plunges us into the warped, lost mind of Jack O'Neill, in an alternate reality where Window of Opportunity twisted in on itself until his sanity buckled under the strain. But if Jack has sacrificed his sense of self for the sake of putting time right again, do you really think Daniel will stand quietly by and accept the status quo without doing something about it?
Powerful, bleak, aching - but with that little smidge of hope, at the end.
Yes, I can see Daniel doing this for Jack. WoO is, underneath the silliness, a pretty dark ep. This really fits.
That night Jack dreamed of being alone surrounded by friends. He dreamed of too many things for his mind to straighten out. He dreamed of days when he kissed Carter and took her home, and days when he kissed Daniel and even days when he kissed Teal'c and almost died as a result. He dreamed of shooting up the control room with a zat gun to get through the stargate and sort things out, he dreamed of zatting Daniel and kidnapping him and making him have some fun for once. He dreamed of driving as far away as he could, of approaching a cliff and wondering if he would wake up next time if he died this time. He remembered holding General Hammond hostage at gunpoint, and being tackled by Teal'c and hurting a lot, and finally he remembered walking out of the commissary and sitting down on the floor with his head on his knees, unwilling to try any more.
The God of Poets Has Two Hands, by Minxy. This is a beautiful, futurefic exploration of so many things: Bra'tac first and foremost, but also Teal'c and the Jaffa and the Tau'ri and the nature of legend and history.
from the original rec:
This thoughtfully eloquent fic shows us the future of the galaxy through Bra'tac's eyes: his thoughts on humans, on the Jaffa's world-building, on Teal'c, on leadership, on himself... and on the creation and formation of legend. Minxy uses the intriguing vehicle of a human bard singing of Teal'c and Thilana (one of the most engaging guest stars in S10) as a backdrop to Bra'tac's thoughts, and you'll find yourself equally fascinated by the lilting language of the ballad and Bra'tac's memories.
This fic is intelligent, which is always something to savor. And we all need Bra'tac in our lives, don't we?
He asks, “Of what then will you sing?”
“Of when she invited the Jaffa back,” the young bard says, trying to stand tall, “well, one Jaffa, called Master Teal’c, in the company of other humans from the first world.”
He is tall enough for a bard, and focused, when he wishes to be. The timbre of his speaking voice holds promise, but he offers no further explanation of his story.
Bra’tac decides. “Ravi Suniel,” he says formally, “Would you sing me this song, that I might offer my informed approval?”
The young bard offers a small smile, looks at the thinning crowd around him, and backs up a step into the crossroads. His posture changes, and his shoulders look strong enough to holding a staff weapon, or to hold the breath to sing.
Bra’tac realizes that he has never heard a human song from beginning to end.
I wrote 27 (!) fics in 2008, although most of them were short. Here are two of them, one angsty and one fluffy:
'Tween Weft and Warp: angst and AUs abound, as Teal'c and Daniel struggle to find the right answers in the wake of FIAD.
U is for Undomesticated Equines, a Jack and Teal'c friendship ep tag for Point of No Return.
Remember, I welcome more gen recs below, whether it's another author's story or your own.
Below is a selection of recs during the 12-month period from April 2008-March 2009. I did my best not to rec a story from an author who has already been featured, which meant skipping a lot of favorites...
I kept it down to ten this time. If you want more, feel free to explore figs_sg1_rec's archive. There's lots there, I assure you. :)
One Forgotten Day, by Vain_glorious. A fantastic crossover with Ronon of SGA before Ronon actually exists on SGA, and it works.
From the original rec:
I can't call this AU, because an Ancient infuriates Daniel by pressing the reset button. But it's definitely a fascinating glimpse of pre-Atlantis Ronon, still tracked and running, as he tries to comprehend this annoying guy who won't stop talking and, impossibly, has never heard of the Wraith.
Poor Daniel spends most of the story in one stage of whump or another, but he never stops being himself - fighting back when he can, arguing, trying to make peace. Ronon is a fascinating study in contrasts, as he doesn't hesitate to shoot or even gag Daniel, yet is afraid to leave him vulnerable to a Wraith attack. And the courage of his decision, at the end of the story, leaves the reader hoping that he'll meet the Atlantis Expedition really, really soon.
You'll enjoy the mystery, the tension, the confusion - it's all good.
Distracted again by the objects before him, Daniel moved away from the cliffside. Some of the debris covered shapes looked like they once formed walls. Daniel whipped out his tape recorder again, babbling a half-formed theory about the possibility that he’d just tripped and landed in Atlantis. He walked on, eyes on a clear shape sticking up, mostly uncovered. It was some kind of archway, like the frame of a huge cube. He’d never seen anything like it, and immediately began describing it into his recorder. He reached out to dust off the glyphs on a panel on its side, and suddenly the panel lit up. Daniel withdrew his hand, and stepped back, unsure what he’d done.
There was a figure standing inside the cube frame, a massively tall man with a tangle of hair, who whipped out a gun and shot Daniel with a pulse of burning red energy before he could even say a word.
Girls (and Jaffa) Do Not Fight Fair, by Kalquessa. Deliciously teamy and YAY SAM as Jack has to watch his team having fun without him!
From the original rec:
General Jack O'Neill meets SG-1 returning from a crisis off-world. Turns out the local baddie forced them into the fighting arena, but Sam - and Teal'c - manage to pwn everyone in sight, so it's only a matter of prying a distracted Daniel out of badly-fitted chainmail and calling Doctor Lee to tell him that SG-1 have already saved themselves, thank you very much.
Poor Jack, all nostalgic for being shot at...
I love the way this is hilariously funny without being cracky in the slightest. Because the pwnage is all canon.
"SG-1 are alright then, sir?"
Oh yeah," Jack confirms. "A little kidnapping and being sold into forced gladiatorial combat. Nothing they couldn't handle. Carter got to bite people and threaten someone with a prison shiv. Sounds like they had a good time, all around."
He gives a little sigh, which must sound more wistful than it's supposed to, because Walter smiles and says "Missing offworld travel, sir?"
Jack fixes him with a very serious stare and says "I don't know what you're talking about, Walter."
Blood and Wires, by Laura Maxwell. Sharply-edged Jack and Daniel friendship is always one of my favorites, especially in a case like this, when their philosophies differ so strongly.
From the original rec:
Laura gives us sharp, edged, vintage Jack and Daniel in the aftermath of Double Jeopardy. Jack only wants to move on and forget about their dead doubles, but Daniel just won't leave it alone: how to relate to them, how to think of them, how to mourn them. Jack just wants to stop thinking; Daniel won't stop.
This is just so perfectly them, as they circle round and round each other.
Remember when robot!Jack asked, "Are we still so far from real to you?" Yeah, this kind of answers it.
"... in one sense, they could even be considered our children."
Jack's pleased smirk vanished so quickly, it felt like someone had vacuumed it right off his face. "What?!" he choked. His hand hit the edge of a book, and the stack toppled every which way. Jack winced.
"Or our siblings," Daniel went on, oblivious, "or even near-identical reflections of ourselves. We've encountered similar things before, with the quantum mirror." That was different, Jack thought helplessly. "Or I could just be completely over-complicating things."
"Heaven forfend," Jack replied, picking up the fallen books.
Learning Curve... Tilt?, by Lokei (G). I gleefully confess that I inspired this one. Whee!
From the original rec:
Lokei pokes gentle fun at the popular "clumsy Daniel" trope. With the deft use of some charming OCs and great cameos from Nyan and Teal'c, the newest recruits at the SGC find themselves watching Dr. Daniel Jackson with absorbed fascination, waiting for the inevitable crashes that never quite happen. And with all their attention elsewhere...
Add an extra nod to the bullying fanon, a Jack who sees right through Daniel, and a deadpan final line that will have you sputtering, and you've got a laugh-out-loud Daniel fic that you'll love as much as I do!
Lokei always does a great mischievous!Daniel. This one is downright classic.
Overheard in the SGC new recruit orientation: “And that’s Dr. Daniel Jackson. If you meet him in the hallway, don’t let the polite distraction fool you. That man opened the Stargate and has helped save the planet more times than you’ve sneezed. His brain is lethal.” A pause. “And so is that stack of paper.”
Beside me, singing in the wilderness, by Rigel. I adore good pre-series Abydos stories. This one is just plain beautiful.
from the original rec:
Daniel, Skaara, Abydos, and moonshine. What more do you need?
How about lush and loving prose that evokes scents and sights and tastes to put you right there in the story with Daniel? Perhaps it's the gentle weaving of past events with current ones, as Daniel's mind wanders to other occasions involving alcohol. Or, most of all, Rigel's enchanting portrayal of Abydos, in which she creates the rich and vibrant society that embraced Daniel as one of its own.
There aren't enough Abydos stories out there. This is one of my favorites.
"It is good?" Skaara clasps his shoulder and leans down to whisper in his ear. "Will it work?"
He'd spent weeks with the metalworkers, scratching out designs with burnt sticks of charcoal on slabs of stone, gesturing and explaining with his hands. He'd even fashioned a working model from clay and demonstrated its workings- to the delight of the clusters of children that had taken to following him around during the day.
"Yes," he says, standing up and placing his new brother's hands at the handle. "You try it."
There are shouts of joy as the water begins to flow.
He thinks now of windmills and pipes that will carry it uphill - even across the desert to Nagada - and scoops a handful of sweet water to his lips, washing away the dust.
Stories of Gods and Heroes, by Bratfarrar. Eloquence in brevity.
From the original rec:
Classic team as Greek mythology.
There are no words. Seven paragraphs: an awesomely profound character study for Jack and Daniel and Teal'c and Sam. Go read, and marvel.
Impossible to excerpt this one, but it is, in a way, the ultimate of character studies. And it's stunning.
Determination and Determination: Practicality. You can't write Sha're as a modern Western woman. But you have to write has as strong. Too few people get taht right, but Beatrice Otter does!
from the original rec:
In this AU, it was Daniel and Skaara who were abducted by Apophis, and it is Sha're who comes to Earth and goes to Chulak with the rest of SG-1 in an effort to get her people back. Beatrice treats us to a woman who watches, and waits, and learns; who navigates the foreign ways of Earth and the SGC with wisdom and caution, using patience and just a touch of guile. We see her careful meeting with General Hammond, her dealings with Sam and Walter and Siler, and her powerful confrontation with Teal'c, which pays tribute to the worldview of both and the strength of the woman who inspired the rebellion on Abydos.
I love her strength and her thinking in both these stories. They feel so right.
Sha’re spun around, fists clenching and unclenching, to face the door. She could not stand to look at him now, not without trying to kill him with her bare hands. It took her some few minutes to control her breathing sufficient to reply. “You think me as foolish and hot blooded as a man,” she said at last.
“I do not understand,” Teal’c said. She heard cloth rustling; he must be standing.
“A man can afford to throw away a tool because it angers him,” Sha’re replied without turning around. “A woman must be more practical. We cannot afford grand, foolish gestures.” She pivoted until she was at right angles to both her enemy and the door. “I will see my husband and brother free,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “And then I will see the false gods destroyed. But I will need your knowledge of their habits and their tongue and their weaknesses. And I will need your courage and skill in battle. You will not die for me, Teal’c,” she said, lifting her chin high. “You will live. And you will teach, and you will fight. And when the last Goa’uld is dead, then you may ask again.”
Daniel of Abydos, by Nightspear. First four novels at AO3; last novel on LJ or at FF.net. I have so much love for this AU series, which was still being written when I first recced it in 2008 and was completed in 2010. Here is a Daniel born and rasied on Abydos (his parents opened the Stargate in the '80s) who is still wholly and wonderfully Daniel. The novels cover the first seven seasons, with twists and turns and the most stunning characterization throughout.
It's difficult to excerpt a rec, or even a few lines, from five long, delicious stores that add up to over 1,000,000 words. But read this for the friendships, for the intelligence of the characters' reactions, for the honesty of repercussions, for the people who live and die in different ways than they do in canon. It is so incredibly worth it.
As Long As It Takes, by Gayalondiel. This AU is painful - in a good way. Because Daniel won't give up on Jack, and there's always hope.
from the original rec:
Gayalondiel plunges us into the warped, lost mind of Jack O'Neill, in an alternate reality where Window of Opportunity twisted in on itself until his sanity buckled under the strain. But if Jack has sacrificed his sense of self for the sake of putting time right again, do you really think Daniel will stand quietly by and accept the status quo without doing something about it?
Powerful, bleak, aching - but with that little smidge of hope, at the end.
Yes, I can see Daniel doing this for Jack. WoO is, underneath the silliness, a pretty dark ep. This really fits.
That night Jack dreamed of being alone surrounded by friends. He dreamed of too many things for his mind to straighten out. He dreamed of days when he kissed Carter and took her home, and days when he kissed Daniel and even days when he kissed Teal'c and almost died as a result. He dreamed of shooting up the control room with a zat gun to get through the stargate and sort things out, he dreamed of zatting Daniel and kidnapping him and making him have some fun for once. He dreamed of driving as far away as he could, of approaching a cliff and wondering if he would wake up next time if he died this time. He remembered holding General Hammond hostage at gunpoint, and being tackled by Teal'c and hurting a lot, and finally he remembered walking out of the commissary and sitting down on the floor with his head on his knees, unwilling to try any more.
The God of Poets Has Two Hands, by Minxy. This is a beautiful, futurefic exploration of so many things: Bra'tac first and foremost, but also Teal'c and the Jaffa and the Tau'ri and the nature of legend and history.
from the original rec:
This thoughtfully eloquent fic shows us the future of the galaxy through Bra'tac's eyes: his thoughts on humans, on the Jaffa's world-building, on Teal'c, on leadership, on himself... and on the creation and formation of legend. Minxy uses the intriguing vehicle of a human bard singing of Teal'c and Thilana (one of the most engaging guest stars in S10) as a backdrop to Bra'tac's thoughts, and you'll find yourself equally fascinated by the lilting language of the ballad and Bra'tac's memories.
This fic is intelligent, which is always something to savor. And we all need Bra'tac in our lives, don't we?
He asks, “Of what then will you sing?”
“Of when she invited the Jaffa back,” the young bard says, trying to stand tall, “well, one Jaffa, called Master Teal’c, in the company of other humans from the first world.”
He is tall enough for a bard, and focused, when he wishes to be. The timbre of his speaking voice holds promise, but he offers no further explanation of his story.
Bra’tac decides. “Ravi Suniel,” he says formally, “Would you sing me this song, that I might offer my informed approval?”
The young bard offers a small smile, looks at the thinning crowd around him, and backs up a step into the crossroads. His posture changes, and his shoulders look strong enough to holding a staff weapon, or to hold the breath to sing.
Bra’tac realizes that he has never heard a human song from beginning to end.
I wrote 27 (!) fics in 2008, although most of them were short. Here are two of them, one angsty and one fluffy:
'Tween Weft and Warp: angst and AUs abound, as Teal'c and Daniel struggle to find the right answers in the wake of FIAD.
U is for Undomesticated Equines, a Jack and Teal'c friendship ep tag for Point of No Return.
Remember, I welcome more gen recs below, whether it's another author's story or your own.