crack_van | The Light of a Fading Sun by Sholio (PG-13)

Fandom: STARGATE: ATLANTIS
Pairing: gen
Length: 93,000 words
Author on LJ:

friendshipper
Author Website: City on the Ocean's Edge

Why this must be read:

I love this story particularly because it's a fic based off of Doranda which is one of my favorite story lines the show gave us, and because it's a multiverse. But the best part about it is the rich characterization.

This one hits you with a punch, even if you're not a McKay/Sheppard shipper like I am. The boys' friendship is in a horrible mess, it's almost nonexistant at the start. Additionally, it's a totally different Atlantis than the one we've come to know and love where the military and scientists haven't gotten along since they reconnected with Earth. The Arcturus Project is a go, sanctioned by the military because McKay goes over Weir's head, further enhancing tensions. But despite this, there's quite a few surprises ahead for our team.

It's a bit of a dark fic, but nonetheless, it feels like a more realistic situation than the writers of SGA ever gave us. It's got action, bitterness, rivalries, politics, and great characterization. The author weaves a wonderful, intricate, and detail-oriented tale that takes you on an emotional rollercoaster. And in the end, it's really all about friendship and the bumps it passes over.

There was no reason to go, every reason to stay. So why did it feel so wrong, that his team were out there risking their lives to save Sheppard's, while he sat in a safe, comfortable lab?

They weren't his team anymore, he reminded himself, sitting back and rubbing at his sore eyes. They were just ... people, with whom he had once ... traveled ... places. Yeah.

Looking up from his computer, he jumped to see a figure standing in the doorway. Sheppard. At least, he thought it was Sheppard; it wore a hooded sweatshirt emblazoned with the USAF logo, the hood pulled so far forward that only a pointed chin was visible. A burly Marine hovered in the corridor just outside.

"Colonel?"

Sheppard pushed back the hood just a little. His face was turned, so that McKay could only see one side of it. What he could see looked normal, though. Maybe Carson was exaggerating the severity of the problem.

"Looking for Beckett," Sheppard said. There was something a little ... off about his voice. It was too rapid, with an unusual throatiness to it.

"He's offworld, hunting Easter eggs." And there it was again, that flicker of guilt that he couldn't quite deny.

"Oh. Right." Sheppard ducked his head away, an oddly diffident gesture from the normally confident pilot. "I didn't realize that he -- I mean, I knew Teyla and Ronon were, but Carson -- I wasn't expecting that."

Sheppard didn't ask why McKay wasn't out there, egg-hunting with the rest of them, and in a way that was even worse. Guilt rose up and nearly choked him. Perhaps that was why he blurted it out, the thing he hadn't meant to mention: "I quit the team."

"What?" Sheppard's head came up, the hood falling back, and Rodney blanched from the scaly blue skin that was revealed. He didn't mean to; he just couldn't control his reaction. He saw Sheppard's face flicker at that, becoming harder, as the Colonel reached up to raise the hood again, and looked away.

"Well." Sheppard sounded almost amused. "It's a pointless gesture, Rodney; without me, there's not exactly a team anymore, is there?"

The grim fatalism pissed off McKay: as if they weren't doing everything in their power to find a cure, as if they wouldn't find a cure at all. As if Sheppard could just discuss his own demise in that flippant tone -- it was stupid, idiotic ... and nothing made him angrier than blatant stupidity, especially from someone who he knew wasn't stupid at all. "It was before that," he snapped. "I turned in my resignation to Elizabeth days ago. And she approved it. Just said I had to talk to you before it'd be official. So -- here I am, talking to you."

"Oh," was all Sheppard said, and that single little word made McKay even angrier. The very least that Sheppard could do was have the decency to ask questions. Or maybe fight back. It felt too much like kicking him while he was down, doing this now. And yet his mouth just kept motoring on.

"Yes, 'oh', Colonel. And Elizabeth told me that you asked to have me removed from the team already --" oops, maybe that had been in confidence, but it was too late now "-- so I figured you'd be pleased. There just hasn't really been a good time to tell you."

"No ... I suppose that's true."

The silence stretched uncomfortably between them. The worst part, McKay thought, wasn't the anger. There wasn't really a lot of anger in this, not as much as there should have been, and that was the worst part of it all. A strong friendship, like the one they'd once had, could survive rage. What it couldn't survive was indifference, and that was what it had become.

He stared at Sheppard and realized that he was looking at a stranger. Not because of the blue scales; he didn't really care about that. Well, all right, he did care about it, because it was creepy and weird and also, it was killing Sheppard. But above and beyond that ... he didn't really know the man standing across the room from him. He'd known him once, known him well. But they didn't know each other anymore.

"When Carson comes back, I'll be in my quarters," Sheppard mumbled, and turned away. It was only after he'd vanished from sight that McKay realized Sheppard had probably thought he'd been staring at the blue scales on his face and neck.

The Light of a Fading Sun

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Question about this: you say it's gen, then you mention Sheppard/McKay. I like reading them as friends, but not when there's even a little slashy undertones. So, is this purely gen, or is there a little slash in it?

Sholio (Friendshipper) is a gen writer: there is no slash of any kind.

Then again, her stories are not het, they are really gen. As opposed to the type that one sometimes reads that pretends to be gen when you are instead subjected to het porn.

There are no slashy undertones to what Friendshipper writes. She's a great gen writer, BTW, one of the best reasons I know of to read gen.

Oh, good, thanks. :-) There's not enough pure gen in fanfic these days. I'll definitely check this out then.

Tell me about it! I've always thought that was why so few read gen (relatively speaking): it has been subverted by het to the extent that most readers have become very wary.

For me, I don't like slash, so I get more annoyed when something labeled gen turns out to be mild (or not so mild) slash. But I don't like thinking something's gen and then finding graphic het sex in it either. (But I do realize that an awful lot of SGA fic is slash, which is why I don't read a whole lot in that fandom.) There really ought to be more gen in all fandoms, though. When I first got into fanfic, that's all I wrote and read for about five years. I don't know why so many people seem to think there must be a pairing to make a story.

Obviously, I like gen (I started out SGA not into any pairing so I read a lot of gen until I got converted to McShep), so I don't believe there has to be a pairing for a good story. But, speaking for myself as a reader and writer, I LOVE the possibilities it creates. There's a lot more complications, a lot more confusion, and more hilarity that can ensue when you're suddenly dealing with relationships. Other times, I just really feel the two as a couple.

But I'm not usually one to pass on good gen fic. For example, good SPN gen where there's a lot of action and just brotherly love is great, or character pieces that don't involve any romantic thoughts are a great way to delve into the show.

I think there's so much pairing fic because it's not what we see on the show. Your average SGA episode is "gen". Sometimes, it's nice to explore other possibilities. That's what I tend to think of as reasoning for fandom. Or you could just call everyone horny.lol

I think it's because writing real gen is harder: with any ship story (het or slash) you will get readers who are in it for the pairing. So it's easy to reach a wide audience even if your plot is shaky or non-existent and your grasp of character is minimal and your storytelling skills are subpar.

Whereas gen fanfic has to stand on its own merits and have a strong story/plot/character analysis/whathaveyou. You don't get a pass because your readers just like the pairing and are ready to forgive you any weaknesses, grammatical mistakes or horribly OOC behavior because they like the pairing to the point where they are besotted.

The OP also mentions a point with which I totally agree: the show itself is mostly gen, so it hardly requires any gen addition. In most cases, people read and write fanfiction to remedy a lack in the original, ie, explicit het or slash. Any SGA fan who is truly in it for the gen can usually be satisfied by the show itself.

Friendshipper is a happy exception because she is such a good writer with an excellent grasp of the characters and a true love of the show and of these characters. If you are a gen-only fan, I would suggest that after enjoying Friendshipper's stories, and checking out the handful of other excellent gen SGA writers you can find easily - they tend to comment on her stories!- you then write off this fandom. The SGA fandom is great, but it is not one where gen stories are thick on the ground.

If you are a het fan, it's a different story: Sheppard/Weir and Sheppard/Teyla both have strong followings, and have a lot of support from all semi-official sources (*cough*Gateworld*cough*) and seem worth staying around for. I wouldn't know the exact details because both of these pairings give me hives -when it comes to SGA het, I prefer McKay/Carter- but there are active communities out there which welcome new members.

Not that the gen fandom would not welcome support, by the way: but it is indeed vanishingly small and unfairly so!

For instance, if you are a het fan, Tielan has just posted the Sheppard/Teyla manifesto, complete with lots of recs:
http://community.livejournal.com/het_reccers/176408.html

And Sheppard/Weir are more numerous than Sheppard/Teyla fans; for one thing, Weir was unattached during Season 2 before she got killed (maybe?) whereas Teyla was with Kanaan from season 4 until the end of the show

Argh, just ignore the above which LJ posted without my actually hitting the Post button (LJ is acting up even more than usual lately).

Generalities regarding the relative importance of pairings in fandom are just too subjective to be worth discussing and I did not mean to start any such discussion based on my uninformed personal opinion!

The correct, more factual version of my addendum was posted correctly below.

For instance, if you are a het fan, Tielan has just posted the Sheppard/Teyla manifesto, complete with lots of recs:
http://community.livejournal.com/het_reccers/176408.html

:D

Yeah, it's purely gen, sorry. I'll change the phrasing a bit, but what I meant was, even if you aren't set on the McKay/Shep love, this fic hurts because they're friendship is in such shreds at the beginning.

Ah, okay, thanks for clarifying. :)

The Light of a Fading Sun by Sholio (PG-13)

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