Must-read slash rec

[justalurkr]

Written By The Victors

Author: cesperanza
Fandom: SGA
Rating: NC-17 slash, het (we're calling this bitextual now?)

Why? The meta on fandom fussing about ship, slash, characterization and the psychosexual bullshit in fandom alone is worth the price of admission. There is also a balls-out brilliant love story or three in this.

Must-read especially for academics, historians and/or anyone else with a passing acquaintance with the writng style. This story has a bibliography and index! !!1!1zomgSQUEE 1!!

Brace yourself: story weighs in at 336k, and is totally, completely the reason I didn't get shit done on my beta duties for nialla42 or owleyesarisen.

Really.

edit to add:

Warnings & Vague spoilers: The story contains het sex, but the slash relationship is its primary focus on the romance side. The story of the Atlantis Uprising is told partly through excerpts from Earth histories, partly through ces's brilliant narrative.

Readers: Het? Slash? But I only read fill in pairing of your choice here! And who da baby daddy?????

Look, it's cesperanza, which is usually enough to decide people one way or another (I'm pretty sure I lost 90% of my audience at the "Author:" field above,) but if you need specifics, and I do mean story-wrecking specifics, scroll your stubborn wienie ass down:

S
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SLASH: McShep, primary focus of the relationship side.
HET: Teyla/Ronon, Teyla/Shep, who actually marry and spawn, Teyla/OMC, maybe Radek/OFC.

The big five warnings:
Slash: m/m, yes
Death story: no one you see in the title sequence of either SG show.
Non-Consensual sex: None.
Partner Betrayal: None from my point of view, and I think you'd have to be psychotically one-true-pairing to see it. Everyone agreed before it happened.
Permanent disability: none.

Comments

[nialla]

I think the "bitextual" thing is simply to have one category to click in the archives for stories that don't fit neatly into the slash or ship categories.

Though honestly, I wish there was some sort of Kinsey scale going on. Are we talking a metric shipload of Sam/Jack with a passing reference to a gay pairing, but nothing "onscreen" as it were? Or a John/Rodney story with equal mention of Ronon/Teyla? I don't mind a mix of het and slash in fic, but I'd like a better idea of what it's describing in the summary.

Maybe it's just because I'm normally sitting on the slashy side of things, but it does seem like more slash writers are putting in a dash of het, but I don't think the het writers are doing the same with slash. Perhaps because many of the slash writers came from het fandoms, or it's just that hetters can't (or won't) grasp the concept of slash?

And get back to work, slacker! I'd crack a whip, but I think you might like it.

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

I've edited to add some spoilage, first light, then rilly rilly specific about the pairings, but I think you won't find anything here too objectionable.

As to the mild upsurge of bitextualism (when it means my beloved slash objects with a side of het in the secondary characters, as I tend not to read stories where het is the primary plot,) I see it as a broadened focus on the entire cast, which is to the good. The team dynamic on SGA has always been better than SG-1 to me, where the focus was on Jack and Daniel, then Jack and Sam, then omg Teal'c can talk?? right as RDA started easing himself out of the picture. John and Rodney are the heavy hitters, but you see John especially interacting wit all three other members of his team a lot more often and more routinely than we ever saw with Jack and his "kids."

I've seen an objection to the McShep OTP that, occasionally, it seems as if John and Rodney live alone on a space station somewhere, and the objector was not wrong. cesperanza made unusually good use of Teyla and Ronon in this, and it's my favorite dash of het ever.

Yes, please crack the whip. I need something to shift the mess in my chest right now, and cough syrup doesn't seem to be getting the job done.

[tries to look pitiful]
[probably looks demented]

[nialla]

I don't mind it if it's a case of a slash pairing and a het pairing co-existing, such as Sheppard/McKay and Teyla/Ronon (which I like well enough), but I don't generally like it when part of either of those pairing crosses over, so this one automatically hits that with Shep/Teyla, especially since I can't imagine Teyla putting up with him beyond a friendship/sibling level. Otherwise, she'd knock the crap out of him for acting like an ass.

I do love that SGA has more secondary characters to play with in general. SG-1 did have a few recurring characters (Lee, Reynolds, even Lorne) but none of them ever truly took off in fic. I think that's just a difference in the writers though, because it seems SGA writers are a lot more likely to pick up those characters. Perhaps it's simply because SG-1 writers didn't have it as an option for so long, it never became the "in" thing.

cesperanza is always so well recommended, but just doesn't do much for me for some reason. Sorry, I tried, but couldn't get past the first section, just too dry. I think in this case it's probably because I'm just not into epic length stories like I once was. Back in my Highlander days, if something didn't have at least 20 chapters, preferably with historical footnotes explaining everything in depth, there was just something wrong with you as an author. ;)

[forlornhope42.livejournal.com]

This is not to be contrary, but must-reads (heck, must-anythings) always, always turn me away for good.

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

I hear you. She just did an amazing job putting together some story elements I hadn't seen done up like that.

Series TV tends to avoid "throughlines," or any storyline that prevents them from running the eps in any order they like in syndication. Really well done stories that take the characters or the setting someplace from which there's no coming back have an extra zing for me and provoke that sort of hyperbole.

When I said I'd probably lost 90% of the audience after the "Author:" field, I knew it was because some of them don't (or have never) read cesperanza because she is so relentlessly recommended for so much as a hiccup. I solemnly swear that "Written by the Victors" far surpasses a hiccup.

[vamysteryfan.livejournal.com]

Great rec and a wonderful story!